Pokemon Master
by Acey
Summary: 11 years in the dark future ... things have changed.
1. Returns

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
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Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
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Part 1 - Returns  
  
  
An icy chill pervaded through the black night; cold except for the  
unnatural hot wind blowing south with the scent of acrid smoke.   
Through the dark starless sky slightly covered by clouds, intermittent   
moonlight shone on to the thick green forest revealing, little by little,   
a snaking trail of destruction. Burnt and broken tree stumps lay on the   
ravaged path - some still burning with small flickering flames - as well   
as fallen branches and other debris interspaced with giant animalistic  
footprints.  
  
A dark figure wrapped in a long hooded black cloak ran through the  
woodland almost silently, the robe-like mantle's folds flapping gently  
behind like a floating shadow. The only sound was the dry vegetation  
softly crunching beneath thick black boots as it followed the trail  
onward. Golden-brown eyes took wide sweeps, observing the desecrated  
area. A small, brown backpack was adjusted briefly by a hand as it sped  
up the pace. The quarry was close...  
  
  
  
  
  
Flames crackled and fires burned. The small town settlement lit up the  
night, its modest structures engulfed like the pyres of a bonfire.  
Everywhere, screaming and smoke filled the heated air as dozens and  
dozens of people ran, all seeking escape from the terror of attacking  
raiders. Appearing from the south without warning, burning and pillaging  
without mercy, huge, hostile pokemon assisted their trainers in the  
merciless and violent raid. Totally unprepared for the assault,  
towns-people and their pokemon were cut down and destroyed almost as soon  
as they were called out.  
  
The huge, red two-storey-tall charizard took another long breath before  
continuing to spit out a long and melting-hot burst of flame which  
turned the school house into glowing crimson embers. At the opposite end  
of town, an angry tauros smashed through houses with its dagger-sharp  
bull horns at the direction of its trainer, trampling over possessions  
and structures alike. Meanwhile, almost matching it in damage, the  
sharp-bladed, green scythers and the massively-horned pinsirs rampaged  
through the town hall and community buildings. Little by little, the  
attackers slowly advanced towards the supply buildings in the centre of  
the town where the food and water was stored.   
  
Behind a slowly burning house, a young dark-haired girl screamed as a  
grinning male raider grabbed and pinned her against the wall. Nearby, his  
kangaskhan watched in fascination.   
  
The raider slapped the girl across the mouth hard. "Shut up with the  
screaming, bitch, and take this like a woman!" He began to work his fly  
open and loosen his pants.   
  
A shadow shifted.  
  
Suddenly an explosion of pain erupted in the raider's head and the next  
thing he knew was the feel of the rushing air as he was picked up and  
thrown violently away from the girl. The hard dirt ground met his back  
all too abruptly and the breath exploded out of his lungs.   
  
"Bastard!" he coughed furiously as he rolled to his feet and opened his  
eyes to see who had dared attack him. Several feet away, a tall figure  
wrapped in darkness stood watching him, its silhouette all but invisible  
if it weren't for the background of burning houses and hazy grey smoke  
behind it.  
  
All of a sudden he felt a cold stab of fear enter his heart. There was  
something familiar about this...  
  
Then he growled in anger. He was mistaken. This was just a poor fool who  
was trying to be a hero. "Kangaskhan, take him!" He laughed. "Chew his  
bones, nice and slow."  
  
Already hissing in anger because of the attack to its master, the large   
bipedal pokemon needed no second order. It gave an inhuman snarl and   
extended its sharp, bony claws before leaping towards the shadow.  
  
However, a rapid spin kick stopped the charging pokemon's attack, while  
one of its claws was seized and used against it, stabbing into its own  
chest like a knife. The kangaskhan blinked in confusion before toppling  
over, its chest a puddle of oozing dark blood.  
  
"Kangaskhan?" the man said in shock. No man could be strong enough to do  
what the figure had just done. He continued to stare, dumbfounded, before  
a hard booted foot smashed into his jaw and everything went black.  
  
  
  
  
  
Puffing a large cloud of dark smoke, the huge charizard eyed the supply  
structures in hunger as even more raiders surrounded the area in a   
half-ring of hostile forces. It snorted questioningly to its master in a   
rough nasal tone.  
  
"No," the tall bald woman answered with a slight chuckle. "The supplies   
we were raiding for in the first place would be destroyed." She looked   
over to one of the other raiders. "You! Use your tauros to break the   
walls down. Then we'll have some fun." She chuckled deep in her throat   
as her sub-ordinate directed his bull pokemon to charge through.  
  
A sudden wet splattering sound sounded from behind them. Turning  
instantly, they discovered a dead, bleeding scyther still sliding  
toward them along the dirt ground from the momentum of being thrown, its  
blood acting as lubricant. It was shockingly mutilated. Somehow both of  
its own sharp, blade-like arms had been twisted around to fatally impale  
itself while its serpent-like head hung from its neck by a thin string of  
red tendon, almost decapitated. The mangled green corpse gradually came  
to a stop before their feet.   
  
For a short moment there was silence.  
  
Then one of the raiders shouted in anger. "My scyther! Whoever did this,  
I'll kill him!"  
  
From behind a burning building, a tall figure wrapped in a long, black  
hooded cloak abruptly stepped out into sight. The cloak was flapping  
sinuously, slightly open in the hot wind, revealing a man's lean but  
muscular body, shrouded in darkness. His face was concealed in the  
deep shadows of the hooded cowl, leaving only bright, golden-brown eyes  
visible. They seemed to glow in the dark; two points of flaring yellow  
light. Which narrowed threateningly.  
  
"Arrogant bastard, isn't he? Think you're a Pokemon Master with that  
cloak?" the bald woman raider mocked. "Surround him!" The huge   
charizard, tauros, pinsirs, and their trainers walked around to slowly   
encircle the cloaked stranger. The frightened towns-people scattered  
about the area watched in terrified silence, thoughts of escape  
forgotten.  
  
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" the woman raider asked  
scornfully. "Before you are roasted alive?" Her charizard snorted in  
anticipation, leaving rings of smoke to shine in the moonlight before  
they dissipated into the darkness.  
  
The black-cloaked figure snapped his fingers. A tiny, shadowy form leaped  
out of the small brown backpack he wore to land by his feet.   
"Pikachu... I choose you." The voice was soft but deep; the order barely   
carrying to them so it could be heard. There was a dangerous quality to   
it that sent a feeling of apprehension down the raiders' necks.  
  
Then they looked down at the cloaked stranger's pokemon. Next to its tall  
master it looked contrastingly small as it crouched, its head barely  
reaching the man's shin. It seemed to be an ordinary pikachu, an electric  
mouse with pointed ears and a long tail the shape of a lightning bolt.  
Except this one's colour was not a bright yellow with orange stripes, but  
a full-bodied, matt black. If it weren't for its round eyes glowing a  
bright cobalt-blue and the light from the fires, it might have been  
perfectly camouflaged in the dark night as it crouched on all fours,  
jagged tail in the air.   
  
She laughed out loud. "That's a weird pikachu, stranger, but Charizard  
will still roast that puny thing into oblivion! Charizard, Flamethrower!"  
  
The huge, red winged-dragon rose up to its full height of twenty feet   
and inhaled sharply. A powerful wind arose, the air ruffling the  
stranger's cloak and causing the pointed ears of the black pikachu to  
sway back and forth. Then the charizard leaned forward and exploded a   
huge tongue of bright red flame towards the little black pokemon and its   
master.  
  
But suddenly the sound of electricity crackled in the night air and the   
fire was repelled by a shield of black electrical energy. It sparked and  
hissed violently as it deflected the flame harmlessly to the sides before  
winking out.  
  
"Pikachu. Lightning Vortex."  
  
The little black pikachu nodded. Abruptly, the crackle of electricity  
returned and a dark eerie glow surrounded the small, strange pokemon.   
The raiders stepped backwards, startled. They had never seen the like of  
this attack before.  
  
A sharp wind began to kick up and rotate around the pikachu and its  
master. Dust, leaves and debris from the destruction of the town's  
buildings began to stir and rise. Rocks and planks of wood lifted into  
the air.  
  
The charizard began to slide forward despite its huge weight. It grunted  
in confusion, then fear as it began to slide faster. It flapped its wings  
to take off, but that was a mistake as it was only pulled into the  
powerful winds that much faster. The raiders themselves began to get  
inhaled, as well as everything around them that wasn't securely attached   
to the ground. The tauros squealed as it scrabbled backward, hooves   
digging into the dirt. However the wind was becoming much too strong.   
  
"What the devil of an attack is this?" the charizard's trainer shouted in  
confusion as she tried to claw herself through the air and back to the  
ground. It was useless. The velocity of the pokemon-made tornado picked  
up speed and soon the town was just a revolving blur to the raiders and  
their pokemon as they spun around wildly.  
  
Then the pikachu screamed, "PIKA!" and a ring of destructive lightning  
exploded from the centre of the vortex - from the pikachu itself. A flash  
of darkest energy was seen and the raiders and their pokemon knew no  
more.  
  
  
  
  
  
The cloaked figure and the pikachu stood in silence. Around them, the  
ring of raiders and their pokemon lay unconscious, if not dead, smoking,  
some even on fire. The charizard was definitely dead, its body ripped in  
two distinct pieces, the severed ends, blackened and frayed. The smell   
of cooked meat and dissipated electricity hung heavily in the night air.  
  
"Good work, Pikachu."  
  
The little black electric mouse stood up on its hind legs. "Pii." It  
jumped back into the backpack, its small head poking out the top.  
  
The towns-people began to approach them wearily despite their instincts  
to just flee from a man who revealed himself as so dangerous. A  
white-haired older man who was most probably their leader or Mayor was in  
the lead.  
  
"T-That was most impressive." He looked at the pikachu staring curiously  
at him from its perch on the stranger's backpack and shivered. How could  
such a small pokemon be that powerful? He shook his head and regarded the  
cloaked stranger again. "B-But, who are you?"  
  
The stranger lifted his hand towards the hood covering his head and  
slowly removed it, settling it back behind his shoulders. It revealed a   
handsome, young man's face, who seemed to be in his early twenties,   
although his golden-brown eyes seemed older than their time.  
  
The night wind picked up again, blowing the smoke of the ruined village  
in the background. It ruffled the stranger's longish black hair, causing  
it to fall half across his face and obscure part of his vision.  
  
He blew the lock of hair out of his eyes with an upturned lip and a gust  
of breath. He answered them. "I am Ash."  
  
  
  
  
  
Warm healing light from the morning sun bathed itself over the small  
half-destroyed town. Despite this the air was still freezing cold,  
causing the villagers to shiver slightly as they worked hard at repairing  
their homes. The raiders had caused such extensive damage that it would  
be some time before the town recovered if at all. But at times like  
these, people could only try. The sound of hammers ringing on anvils  
reverberated loudly in the still air and the sawing of wood echoed among  
the destroyed buildings.   
  
Ash sighed as he warmed one of his hands on the fire and sipped  
some tea from a mug in the other. Leaning back on to the rough   
trunk of a tall tree, he combed the hair out of his eyes. Hard to believe  
this had once been Pallet Town. It had been so long. Now he knew no one.  
They were all strangers.   
  
He closed his eyes. He was a stranger.  
  
A giggle interrupted his internal monologue and he sighed again. Would  
these kids ever leave him alone? He opened his eyes to observe the crowds   
of children, infants and teenagers alike as they scampered around his  
campsite at the edge of the raided town and the forest.  
  
"Does that cloak mean it's true you're a Pokemon Master?"  
  
"Why don't you have any more poke-balls?"  
  
"Silly, he's only got one pokemon."  
  
"How come you only have one pokemon?"  
  
"I've never heard of a Master with only one pokemon."  
  
"Mister, why is your pikachu a weird colour?"  
  
And the questions they asked. He couldn't believe he had been this  
noisy as a kid. He must have really been annoying.   
  
Pikachu, for his part, calmly munched on his apple as he stared into the  
campfire. "Pika-pii..."  
  
Then a new voice spoke up. "I've heard about the one with the black, or  
'shadow' pikachu." It was a skeptical woman who had been observing them   
from afar for some time but only now had come closer. She was a pretty,   
blonde woman who most probably had turned the heads of many men.  
  
Ash ignored her, his whimsical mood darkening, and looked down to  
contemplate the bubbles in his tea.  
  
"It is said that he was unbeatable and that he was once the top trainer  
in the Pokemon League."  
  
The kids hearing this, fell to silence. They began to look at him  
fearfully. Some even began to step backward.  
  
"Then one day he disappeared..."  
  
Ash put his mug down, picked up his long cloak and stood up. It was time  
for him to leave. It was always time for him to leave. He looked up to  
find that all of the children had made their escape.  
  
However, one of the teenagers was still there. "Mister, I don't believe  
for one instant you were one of the evil Pokemon League," she said  
forcefully. It was the girl he had saved from last night. "No one who was  
one of them could be as heroic and handsome as you are..."  
  
The blonde woman sucked in her breath. "You don't know who you're talking   
to..."  
  
Ash just began to roll up his sleeping bag impassively. "She is right.  
You do not know me." He clenched his black-gloved fist and stared at it,  
his thoughts a thousand miles away. "You do not know me at all."  
  
  
  
  
  
Seemingly permanently hidden behind its dense layer of grey clouds, the   
afternoon sun slowly slid across its downward trajectory along the sky.  
Although the wind was beginning to pick up speed, ruffling Ash's cloak  
and hood, the deserted ruins of the city were silent. Almost too silent.  
Not even the insects were chirping their songs, though overgrown foliage  
was plentiful among the stones. Ash shrugged his black cloak around his  
shoulders slightly, loosening it. There might be a battle soon. Someone  
was following him. And it seemed ... like with hostile intent.  
  
"Chu..." Pikachu said sadly from atop Ash's left shoulder as he looked  
around at the debris that used to be Viridian City. Ash understood  
Pikachu's sadness. This place held memories for him too. It was the first  
city he had reached back in his training days. If not for Nurse Joy,  
Pikachu would not be here now, and most likely he would not be here  
either. Most likely, dead. He and Pikachu had stuck by each other through  
thick and thin.  
  
Ash stared at the broken-down wall of one of the old buildings. In fact  
that was probably part of the Pokemon Center which had saved Pikachu's  
life. Now this city was nothing but a deserted forest of crumbling  
rubble. Even the air smelled dead. It was just like all the other major  
cities that had been destroyed back in the Dark Pokemon Wars. A cloud of  
dust was picked up by the wind and he held his hand over his nose and  
mouth as it passed.  
  
He could still feel the itch on the back of his neck. Whoever it was, was  
still following them. It kept a safe distance and didn't seem to be  
advancing on them... Yet.  
  
Pikachu's ears pricked up. "Pika?"  
  
Ash turned to the little pokemon riding on his shoulder. "Yes, there's  
someone following us, Pikachu. But they seem to be keeping back-"  
  
"PIKA!"  
  
The crumbling stone wall they had been walking parallel to abruptly  
exploded with a hail of sharp rocks. Shrapnel and rubble showered over  
them in a spiked, painful rain as a massive object crashed through with a  
rumble the sound of thunder.  
  
"What?" Ash grunted, as he quickly threw Pikachu away to safety, just in  
time, before he was smashed back painfully, to roll sideways along the  
gravel of the old road. After rolling away at what he thought a  
sufficient distance, he swung to his feet, jumped and backflipped away  
to land on top of the opposite wall. He threw the hood of his cloak back  
and brushed his hand across his temple. He felt the slight stickiness of  
blood.  
  
"Pikachu! To me!" His small companion leaped to land on his left shoulder  
once again. Then he turned to the scene of the attack with narrowed eyes.  
  
Dust was floating around everywhere. It was hard to even make out the  
wall they had been walking next to. He raised his hand to shelter his  
face as he quickly searched. He had not even sensed this threat. Which   
meant the attacker was one of *them*.  
  
Finally the dust settled. There was a gaping trench in the wall and next  
to it lay a huge, brown boulder about a dozen feet across. Then with a  
loud creaking of stone, thick, grey limbs began to sprout from the  
massive rock. Large claws as sharp as daggers extended from the  
newly-made appendages and a snake-like head grew from the centre of what  
would be its torso. The eyes on the rocky, serpent head, suddenly  
swivelled open. They were an angry red - the colour of blood.  
  
"TRAITOR," the head hissed.  
  
"Golemdor," Ash acknowledged, turning his body slightly sideways in alert  
preparation.   
  
"IT WAS YOU WHO INTERFERED WITH THE RAID ON THE PALLET SETTLEMENT   
YESTERDAY. YOU HAVE BEEN A LOOSE CANNON TOO LONG, ASHURA. TODAY IT ENDS.  
YOU SHALL FINALLY PAY FOR YOUR TREACHERY."  
  
"I think not."  
  
The red serpentine eyes swivelled to Pikachu who was sitting on Ash's  
shoulder. "I SEE YOU ARE STILL TRAVELLING WITH THE LITTLE ONE." It  
focused on Pikachu completely. "YOU COULD HAVE HAD POWER LIKE THE REST  
OF US. WHY DO YOU TRAVEL WITH THE ASSASSIN?"  
  
"Pika-pikachu!" Pikachu chattered angrily from atop his shoulder. Ash   
narrowed his eyes at the mention of the name the Golem had called him.  
  
"YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO POKEMON-KIND!" the Golem roared in response to  
whatever Pikachu had said. "EARTHQUAKE!" It lifted a huge stone fist and  
pounded the ground. The earth shook wildly as a large jagged crack  
rapidly approached the wall he was standing on. Ash leaped high into the  
air, tossing Pikachu to the side just before the quake reached it and  
reduced the stone wall to dust.  
  
As he landed softly upon the ground on one knee, a hand clutching a loose  
fold of his cloak steady, the massive Golem again pounded the earth in  
its Earthquake attack, this time using both of its fists. Ash was   
hard-pressed to avoid the cracks of destruction heading his way as he   
turned a backward somersault then hand-flipped smoothly across the ruins.   
He barely dodged the wildly-shaking earth attacks that shredded the  
ground behind and below him like a rapid jack-hammer.  
  
Then he exhaled in pain as a piece of rock shaped like a dagger  
flew up and embedded itself into his leg. He landed painfully and slid   
along on his chest, the gravel digging into the palms of his hands.  
  
"Chu!" Pikachu shouted in alarm, leaping to distract the huge Golem.   
Black lightning began to spark from his cheeks. "Pika pi!"  
  
The Golem grunted as it stopped its Earthquake attack. "DIE," it  
rasped as the huge animalistic boulder began to charge the small pokemon.  
The ground rumbled from its immense weight.  
  
Ash looked up in apprehension. "Pikachu!"  
  
"PIKA!" Pikachu cried, body crackling violently as it sent a powerful  
black thunderbolt toward the oncoming Golem. However, despite the extreme  
strength of the dark electric attack, it dissipated harmlessly over the  
rock pokemon's stony-hard body. The huge, limbed boulder continued  
forward in its mad charge.  
  
"No!" Ash called out desperately. Exhaling a breath in pain, he ripped  
out the piece of stone shrapnel from his leg, then leaped forward,  
knocking Pikachu out of the way. The Golem careened past and screamed in  
frustration at missing its intended target. After skidding to a stop, it  
looked at Ash lying on the ground nearby with a malevolent   
gleam in its blood-red eyes. It grabbed him with one of its huge   
rock-like fists and pain exploded in his torso as its tight grip began   
to squeeze the life out of him.  
  
"NOW YOU DIE," the Golem chuckled. It opened its palm slightly to allow   
access to the front of Ash's body and then, snorting in rough laughter,   
gave him two massive punches into his chest with its free arm before   
tossing him away like a broken toy. Ash uncontrollably flipped in midair  
then crashed on the hard ground with a muted thump on his back and  
continued to slide painfully away. His cloak ripped in several places as  
the rocky and jagged ground's friction took its toll, before a large  
piece of stony rubble stopped his momentum with a crunching sound.  
  
Feeling like his chest had caved in and died, Ash coughed and spat out a  
mixture of blood and saliva as he lay on the ground and rolled over.  
Slowly, he got up on his hands and knees, shaking furiously. "Now you've  
gotten me angry, Golemdor. And you'll see just why they called me the  
Assassin." His voice was low and calm. His voice was death.  
  
The Golem looked at him in confusion. It had expected the human to be  
lifeless. Dead. Granted, this one had once been a Pokemon Master in the  
Pokemon League, but at the heart of things, he was still a puny human.   
It had given enough blows into its chest to shatter concrete, let alone  
bone.   
  
"HOW CAN YOU STILL BE ALIVE?"  
  
"That's a question you'll soon be asking yourself!' Ash cried, before  
flipping to his feet and streaking forward so fast that his form   
blurred into a live shadow. The Golem tried to dodge, but it was much   
to slow to avoid the massive step-roundhouse kick aimed at its legs,   
then another and another. Dust rose as with each hit, the Golem was   
knocked backward.   
  
But the Golem seemed unperturbed. "FOOL! YOU CANNOT HOPE TO DAMAGE ME,"  
it taunted as each hit seemed to fail to affect it. But it began to feel  
apprehension at the furious attack the human displayed. After all, back  
in the Dark Pokemon Wars, this one had gained a reputation...  
  
Ash paused in his rapid attack, standing on one heel, before seeming to  
make the very light bend around his fore-knuckle fist as he struck  
forward with a single massive blow, scoring directly across both thick,  
rocky legs. Then he leaped backward, high in the air, before flipping   
around with a one and a half twist and landing lightly on an intact   
section of the wall. The sound of his boots striking the stone was   
non-existent.  
  
"You were already dead from the first hit," he stated calmly, as the  
folds of his cloak settled around him.   
  
Too calmly, the Golem suddenly worried. Time seemed to stand still. "WHAT  
HAVE YOU DONE - NOOO!" Its legs abruptly gave way from underneath it as  
they crumbled into dust like the fine sand of an hourglass. The torso of  
the boulder-like pokemon cracked at the loss of its support and toppled  
over to land on its back. "IMPOSSIBLE! THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE! I AM  
INDESTRUCTIBLE!" It tried to lift itself up by the use of its remaining  
arms, but lost balance and fell over again.  
  
Ash held his right arm out horizontally and Pikachu landed on it.  
"We shall see." He threw Pikachu high into the air. "Finish it! Thunder  
Shatter!"  
  
Midair, the little pikachu rolled into ball and began to emit a dark  
light.  
  
"FOOLS! I AM IMPERVIOUS TO ELECTRICAL ATTACKS."  
  
"PIKA!" The air around the pikachu suddenly roared with thunder and began  
to spark black lightning as it descended towards the Golem.  
  
"WHA-WHAT IS THIS?" it shouted in alarm as the small pokemon collided  
into its chest with a spray of stone shrapnel and shot into its body like  
a bullet through flesh. When the pikachu had fully entered its rocky  
torso, the Golem started to vibrate madly, pebbles and rocks falling away  
from its skin. "WHA-WHAT MA-MANNER O-OF A-ATTACK I-IS T-THI-"   
  
It didn't get to finish its question. The Golem's body turned black and  
its body began to invert into itself as if it were trying to implode.  
Then the rumble of thunderclaps and flashes of black lightning exploded  
from within it and instead the Golem was ripped apart into countless tiny  
pieces of rock and dust.  
  
When the thunder stopped cracking, all that was left in the centre of the  
explosion was the little black pikachu. A ring of grey and brown dust and  
rock lay piled around in a circle. The Golem's snake-like head rested a  
dozen feet away, before it too crumbled, like wet sand, into a fine dark  
powder.  
  
"Pikachu... Return." The small electric mouse leaped back onto Ash's  
backpack.  
  
There was the sound of clapping. Ash quickly turned around from his   
position standing on the wall to see a person dressed and hooded in a   
long Master's cloak like his save it was blue. He or she was leaning on   
one of the toppled walls of a destroyed building lazily applauding him   
with their hands. He studied the slender figure more closely. She.  
  
"Only a true Pokemon Master could defeat one of the eight Master Pokemons  
of the Pokemon League."  
  
That voice. His eyes narrowed even as something he had thought long  
forgotten began to arise within his chest. No, it couldn't be. "And who  
are you to make such observations?" he asked softly.  
  
Not answering him, the blue-cloaked figure slowly began to approach, aqua   
eyes beginning to become visible within the depths of her shadowy hood.  
Suddenly she leaped up to join him on the wall so abruptly that he was  
completely unprepared for what she did next.  
  
She kissed him.  
  
But it was not a loving kiss, nor even one of liking. It was a hard kiss,  
the type that punished.  
  
He broke away from her, feeling the slight coppery taste of his own   
blood upon his tongue and maybe some of hers, and stood still. He gave no   
outward reaction.  
  
The aqua eyes studied him for a while with an emotion he couldn't   
identify. Finally she answered him. "You know who I am." The hood was   
pushed back to reveal glorious long red hair to float behind a hauntingly   
beautiful face.  
  
And then the hurt was fully remembered, unbidden, before it changed. To  
hatred. It welled up in his chest, so powerful it seemed to consume his  
soul. Abruptly it was replaced by emptiness. He had thought he would  
never see her again.   
  
His voice when it came was a dead tone. "Hello, Misty."  
  
Her eyes, framed by long dark lashes, flashed as cold as an iceberg.  
"Mistaria," she corrected. "And I see you haven't forgotten me."  
  
  
  
*** End of Part 1  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Lightning Vortex  
Type : Electricity / Flying  
  
A powerful hurricane is formed around the Pikachu. When the opponents are  
sucked inside, a ring of destructive electrical energy is exploded  
outward.  
  
Attack : Thunder Shatter   
Type : Electricity / Normal  
  
Pikachu rolls into a ball and glows with a black light before entering  
the victim's body. The victim then vibrates and explodes, leaving the  
Pikachu in its place. Effective against rock.   
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Welcome to Pokemon Master...  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	2. Reunions

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 2 - Reunions  
  
  
A slim figure covered by a long white hooded cloak kneeled as it studied  
the ground intently. Reaching down with a finger, it touched a  
rusty-coloured patch on the stony surface in between clumps of dead  
weeds. Then raising its fingertip to the opening of its hood, it licked  
its fingertip and smiled.  
  
"You're back. And so convenient too..."  
  
A deep, rumbling grunt from behind was the only answer.  
  
  
  
  
  
Slight waves rocked the small canoe as it drifted slowly northward down  
the river, bubbles gently lapping against the sides of the boat.   
A hazy mist hung about the waters and the sky was grey as an old sword.  
In contrast to the sounds of the steady current all about them, the  
green forests on either side of the stream remained deathly silent.  
  
Ash leaned back against the rear of the canoe and took the time to study  
the blue-cloaked woman sitting in front of him. She was unaware of his  
attention as she steered them steadily along with a long wooden pole.  
  
He had recognised her instantly even before she offered her supposed  
name. After all this time, what was she doing here? What did she want  
with him? He squashed down the dark, forgotten feelings of resentment  
that threatened to spill over from inside and breathed in deeply. After  
adjusting the black hood that kept his face hidden within its shadows, he  
looked down at Pikachu, who seemed greatly fascinated by the canoe ride.  
Cheered up a little by his pokemon's obvious enjoyment, Ash sat up again  
and checked the bandage around his leg. The wound left from the sharp  
stone fragment had been deep but he was healing fast as always.  
  
"It will be night soon. Let us camp at the next bend of the river."  
  
Ash tightened his bandage more, welcoming the pain. "And you will tell me  
what it is that you want of me or why you are even here, Mistaria ...  
Misty."  
  
The blue-cloaked woman didn't turn to him as she continued to steer the  
boat. Minutes passed. He almost thought she hadn't heard his question  
before she suddenly threw her hood back to let her long red hair float in  
the breeze. She twisted slightly to regard him with somber eyes. "Let's  
not live in the past ... Ash."  
  
With her head unhooded, he could see more of her features. She had  
matured. Especially her beauty which had shown promise when they  
were younger, but was now in full bloom. In youth she had been pretty,  
most would say cute. But apparently cuteness had fled over the years and  
left adult splendour in its place. Sooty dark lashes were unblinking over  
her aqua eyes creating an alluring contrast with the pale skin of her  
face and darker hair. Pink-tinged lips were expressionless as strands of  
her hair fought the wind and partially obscured her face.  
  
However, overall, though much had changed, he knew he could never mistake  
her for another person. But one thing ate at him. There was a strange,  
different kind of familiarity with that beauty that seemed almost  
unnatural. Like for the few times the sun managed to squeeze out its  
golden light through the steel sky and upon her...  
  
He finally turned away to stare at the moving scenery of the forest.  
Pikachu noticed her and growled.  
  
"You haven't forgiven me have you?" she asked rhetorically, meaning  
either or both of them.  
  
He didn't answer.  
  
"But that's okay, since I haven't forgiven you either."  
  
Anger welled, but was just as soon gone.  
  
She began to say something else when the boat rocked dangerously  
to the left almost unbalancing her. Ash steadied himself with a hand on  
the edge of the boat, while his other hand grabbed Pikachu to stop him  
from falling into the river. A large wave splashed into the boat,  
drenching everyone in cold river water. Pikachu chattered angrily and  
powered up for a short instant, drying his black fur with dark energy.  
  
Ash rose up on his knees, while throwing his hood back to wipe the water  
out of his face and the hair from obstructing his vision. He narrowed his  
eyes in annoyance when he saw the long, spiny blue tail snaking along the  
water around them. He turned to the front of the boat and waited.  
  
A second later, the water at the head of the boat exploded upward into a  
fountain at least twenty feet tall. At the centre of the eruption, the  
head of a gyarados appeared, its angry, yellow eyes in narrow slits. It  
puffed a cloud of hot steam from its dragon-like snout and screamed a  
high pitched animal cry as its long scaly body continued to rise out of  
the water. It began to lower its head to attack.  
  
"Pikachu ..." Ash began.   
  
"Pi-ka!" His pokemon started to gather power into itself. Black sparks  
emitted from his cheeks.  
  
"Wait." Misty waved them off and Ash signalled Pikachu to stop. The  
gyarados snarled as it streaked down, its mouth open in an angry shower  
of sharp teeth. Misty's eyes began to glow a startling blue, an almost  
unholy light emanating from her pupils. The sound of the rushing waters  
seemed to fade into the background, into a still silence. The Gyarados  
froze, unmoving.  
  
Misty's eyes began to glow even brighter. Then she waved her hand in a  
quick gesture. Simultaneous with the movement of her arm, the large  
hostile pokemon dived back into the river. The light in Misty's eyes  
winked out and time seemed to flow as normal. The sound of the rushing  
river came back.  
  
"A Water Master," Ash stated. "Just like you always wanted to be."  
  
Misty shrugged and replaced the blue hood of her cloak over her head.  
"You knew my dream," she said, as she continued to steer them down the  
river. Then added with a sarcastic smile, "Besides the dream that you  
would ever repay my bike."  
  
"Oh ... yeah."  
  
  
  
  
  
The moon's light was dim in the darkness of the night sky. The camp fire  
crackled warmly in front of Ash as he stared at the orange and yellow  
flames eat away at the wood. Looking down as he unwrapped the  
bandage from his leg, he noticed in satisfaction that the wound had  
healed completely. Although, strangely he was still feeling a bit weak.   
Enough time had passed by now for him to have fully recovered. Maybe it  
was just stress. And the shadows knew just how stressed he was.  
  
A soft snoring came from Pikachu as he slept beside him, snuggled inside  
the opening of Ash's backpack. Ash looked down at him and a half-smile  
formed on his lips. Pikachu certainly deserved the rest after the day's  
effort.  
  
On the opposite side of the camp fire, Misty removed her cloak and sat  
down. Ash watched her with slitted eyes as she took some blankets out  
of a travel pack then began writing in a small notebook which she took  
from one of the folds in her cloak.  
  
"So what is so important that you seeked me out of all people? Why are  
you even here?"  
  
Misty stopped writing and looked up at him. She blew a long strand of red  
hair out of her eyes with a tilt of her mouth. "Reconnaissance, mostly."  
  
He should have known. "So you're just a spy," he said contemptuously.  
"For the Rebellion, I assume?" He wondered why he had never saw her  
before now and never even knew about her allegience. The answer to the  
inward question came as quickly as it was asked. She had been avoiding  
him obviously. And a good thing too.  
  
"That is correct," she replied curtly.  
  
"It's a pointless battle. There's no way you can win."  
  
Her eyes flashed, almost beginning to glow. "You certainly did not help  
matters."  
  
He shrugged, uncaring. "That was in the past."  
  
"What could have possibly made you decide to fight with the League?"  
  
He ignored the question. "So, again, what is this all about?"  
  
Misty was silent for a while, toying with a long lock of her hair. She  
stared at the fire. "You must have noticed the large amount of League  
activity in this area and to the east."  
  
"Yes, there has been more... disturbances... here than in other areas  
that I pass through."  
  
"Well, from the little intelligence reports that we've received, it seems  
that something is going down at the Cerulean City ruins and I've got to  
find out *what*. From the few Masters that we have on our side we have  
our own missions. This is mine."  
  
"And where do I fit into all of this?"  
  
She played with a long lock of her red hair. "Well I have to admit I  
certainly didn't plan for meeting up with you. I just came across some of  
your ... handy work the night before. I didn't even know or believe it  
was you until-" She cut herself off, looking uncomfortable. Finally she  
looked at him in the eyes. "Ash, you're the only one who knows how the  
League operates and who is actually not part of the League. You've been  
with them a long time. You have information that could be of great help.  
And I've seen your power. How you easily defeated the Master Pokemon of  
Rock. You've seen the world oppression caused by the League. Wouldn't  
that be one of the reasons you left them in the first place?"  
  
So that was it. She just wanted to use him. Again. Inside, the dark  
feelings of resentment rose to a crescendo. Outwardly, he showed nothing.  
His voice devoid of emotion, he shook his head. "Tomorrow we will split  
up and go our separate ways. I'm sorry but I can't be a part of this any  
more." Can't be a part of you, he added silently.  
  
Misty shook her head. "Please don't let your personal feelings about me  
influence your decision. Think of all the suffering you could end." Her  
eyes seemed to moisten, but instead they began to glow a bright blue.  
"I'm sorry I have to do this, but it's for the good of this world."  
  
Ash startled, began to stand up. Then he shouted in pain as he felt his  
blood begin to boil. How could she have done it? As he bent over with the  
unbearable pain, a small cut on the inside of his lip broke open. He   
tasted the metallic taste of blood. Of course! He should have known that   
the kiss she gave him wasn't just for show. But she had caught him so   
off-guard, he couldn't have prevented it. But he should have. Stupid,   
stupid, he admonished himself. Never trust anyone! Especially, of all   
people, this woman!   
  
Pikachu woke up and began to snarl, powering up to let loose a bolt of  
dark lightning at Misty who was still staring at Ash with her glowing  
blue eyes.  
  
"Did you happen to know that the human body is comprised of more than  
seventy-five percent water?" she asked in an apparent bored tone as her  
eyes abruptly returned to normal. "And when that balance begins to  
change, it usually leads to death." She licked her lips. "Amazing what   
a drop of my blood can let me start when it gets within the bloodstream   
of a person." She noticed Pikachu's agitation and looked down at him.   
"If you kill me, your Master will die also."  
  
Pikachu stopped powering up, confused on what to do. Ash, his pain  
beginning to subside, sat up again and held him off with an upright hand.  
"I guess you've won this one." He was calm now. "So how long have I got?"  
  
"About a week ... unless of course you convince me to remove my ...  
influence from your person."  
  
"And helping you do your job just might happen to convince you."  
  
"I see you understand."  
  
He shook his head. "You've changed, Misty."  
  
"That's true." She smoothed her hair and looked down at the ring on her   
finger. "You just don't know how much."  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a foggy morning. Ash struggled to see as Misty lead their way east  
towards the Cerulean City ruins. Dead leaves and other foliage crackled  
underfoot as they walked at a slower than usual pace through the woods.  
Misty may be able to see through the white fog, water being her element,  
but he sure couldn't. It was hard for him to even make out the dark-blue  
of her cloak in front of him.  
  
"Chu!" Pikachu chattered angrily in Ash's ear as he rode on his shoulder.  
  
"It's okay, Pikachu," Ash said quietly, so as not to let Misty hear.  
"I'll find some way to deal with this ... this poison. It is water-based  
though, so there's nothing I can do for now, except to do whatever it is  
she wants."  
  
"Pikapi! Pi-pikachu..."  
  
"No, if you kill her, I'll die," Ash said grinning a little at the fierce  
loyalty of his friend. Then he turned his head to look at him with a  
serious face. "Besides I thought you liked Misty."  
  
Pikachu's blue eyes moistened a little as he seemed to remember  
something. "Cha..."  
  
"Well I'm over it now, so you don't have to worry." He looked ahead  
searching for the dark-blue outline of Misty's cloak. It wasn't there.  
"Damn, where did she go?" he said aloud, speeding up his pace a little.  
The toe of his left boot caught on a fallen branch that he didn't see and  
he almost tripped over. Fortunately he was able to grasp the trunk of a  
nearby tree for support. Pikachu jumped back into the top of his  
backpack, but kept his head sticking out of the opening.  
  
"Misty!" he shouted, as he looked all around. The lack of visibility   
caused by the fog was terrible. He could barely see more than half a   
dozen meters in front of him before the scenery was swallowed by an   
all-encompassing white. "Misty!"  
  
For a moment it seemed like someone answered him. Ash concentrated on  
listening to it. It seemed like ... singing? He concentrated even more   
and could just make out some words.  
  
  
"Shadow and sun, sun and shadow...  
Refraction of light, what shall form?"  
  
  
It was coming from the north. The melody was strangely, haunting and  
beautiful. And familiar. He couldn't tell whether the song itself was  
familiar or the voice of whoever sung it. Or both.  
  
"Pikachu, you hear that?"  
  
"Pii."  
  
"Let's go see what it is," Ash said, his curiosity awakened. "And  
besides, I don't know where the heck we are anyway, so following it for   
now won't hurt anything."  
  
He stepped through the mist slowly, but surely, following the sound of  
the song. As he did so, he parted away low-lying branches from the trees   
and stepped carefully over shrubs and bushes and other forest vegetation   
lying on the ground.  
  
After a couple of minutes, and parting yet another set of low branches,   
the mist seemed to give way to a clearing and what looked like an old   
temple. It was fairly ancient, old enough to have survived through the   
Dark Wars and then some.  
  
The clearing the temple was in the middle of appeared to favour the sun  
as it streamed down, bright over the structure in contrast to the dreary  
thick fog behind him. The temple itself, although ancient looking, was  
fairly well preserved and beautiful in its own way with various  
multi-coloured stain-glassed windows and whitish marble walls. The  
double wooden doors in the front of it were wide open. It was also the   
source of the haunting song that had led him here.  
  
Ash stepped forward into the clearing, feeling the warmth of the sun wash  
over him in waves. He removed the hood of his cloak and combed the black  
hair of his head with his hand. With the other, he felt the sunlight in  
his palm. Although warm ... it was also strangely cold at the same time.  
Feelings of familiarity washed over him and he turned to narrow his eyes  
at the entrance to the temple.  
  
"Pika ... ?"  
  
"Yes, Pikachu, we're going in."  
  
As they approached the temple, the song continued.  
  
  
"Just as the shadow has many faces  
Mystery surrounds the storm."  
  
  
  
  
  
"Ash!" Misty called behind her. "Are you still with me?"  
  
No one answered. She stopped walking and turned around. He wasn't there.  
Annoyed, she lifted her hand and repelled more of the fog to see further  
behind her. All that were revealed were more trees and foliage.  
  
She could hear some sort of melody. Someone singing. Faint. She began to  
run towards the source of its sound. Absent-mindedly, she dissolved the  
fog in front of her with an open hand. She should have known that walking  
through this forest without any disturbances was wishful thinking.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash walked along the narrow hallway, quietly following the origin of the  
singing. He knew who it was now. Pikachu, riding on his shoulder,  
chattered desperately at him to turn back, but he continued onwards. He  
couldn't stop himself.  
  
Finally he reached the centre of the temple. The chapel. He stepped   
inside, past the open doors, and saw her.  
  
She was standing on the altar with her back turned towards him. It was  
her who was singing the song. On her slim body she wore an almost   
transparent white robe which fell past her long legs and down to her   
ankles, leaving her elegant feet bare. Long, straight blonde hair fell   
down her back and almost past her waist. Its colour was so golden it   
seemed to emit a light of its own.  
  
It was her. Pikachu was silent on his shoulder. But he could feel the fur  
of the electric mouse stiffen through his cloak.  
  
His danger senses exploded into action, but he stayed unmoving as the   
door to the chapel suddenly slammed shut with a bang and long chains of   
white light shot out from each corner of the room to wrap him and   
Pikachu up, tight and immobile.  
  
More sunlight seemed to stream in through the roof of stained glass  
windows to fall all around the woman in front of him. She seemed to glow  
even brighter, as if the sunlight was indeed coming from her and not the   
roof. Her melodious voice continued to sing, haunted,  
  
  
"But together, what will become  
when that which has split become one?"  
  
  
She stopped singing and the room fell to silence. She lifted her arms  
above her head and from her feet, a white light began to drift upwards,  
but slowly as if it were smoke. When the light reached the top of her  
hands, it seemed to blink once then reform into a white material. First  
long white sleeves formed down her arms, then a hood around her head as  
the rest of the light fell downwards to morph into a long robe-like  
cloak. A Master's cloak of pure white. She dropped her arms in a sudden,  
quick motion.  
  
The newly cloaked woman turned around and removed her hood with one  
elegant hand. She tilted her head up and freed the hair from her neck  
to fall down her back. Then, looking down at him as he stood helplessly  
encased in long chains of light, she gave a half-smile. Brilliant blue  
eyes regarded him with a devilish twinkle in their depths.  
  
"Remember me, Ashura?" Her voice was the same. Throaty, sensuous.   
  
"Valdera," he acknowledged.  
  
She looked him up and down. "Even more handsome than I remember."  
  
"And you. Still a beautiful bitch."  
  
She laughed at him. "I missed you, you know. We were good together. An  
unstoppable team. One complementing the other."  
  
She stepped down off the altar and approached him, walking through the  
gold chains of light that held him from each corner as if they really  
were as insubstantial as they seemed. She stood in front of him and   
unmoved by the beauty of her face, Ash stared into her eyes, finding them  
doubly familiar for some unknown reason.  
  
She lifted a slim hand, and with a long fingernail, began to trace down   
his cheek. Ash repressed the urge to shiver.  
  
"Why don't you come back to the League with me? The empty spot in our bed  
has been empty for far too long ..." She smiled. "And my pokemon. She  
misses both of you as well ..."  
  
Pikachu, trapped on his shoulder, made a small sound, but Ash silently  
ordered for him to stay still.  
  
Suddenly an explosion rocked the temple and the chapel doors were   
blown inwards off their hinges with a crash. Ash turned his head to find  
Misty striding in, her blue cloak giving off an icy-cold steam. Her hood  
was lowered and thrown back, her long red hair seeming to float behind  
her as if being blown by a strong wind. Eyes glowing as she accessed her  
power over the element of water, she lifted her right arm.  
  
"Seadra! Ice Beam!" From behind her, a large shadow inhaled its breath  
and a split second later, a cold, vivid blue beam of energy shot forth,  
directly at Valdera. However, the intended target did a quick backflip   
towards the altar almost lazily, white cloak whipping about, and dodged   
the shot with ease. Instead, the beam hit the back wall of the chapel   
and exploded, sending shards of sparkling ice everywhere.  
  
Valdera smoothed her cloak down with her hands. "Pity." She yawned,  
covering her mouth with a hand. "An interruption."  
  
Ash concentrated, his eyes glowing golden, and dark shadows rose up from  
his feet to dissolve the chains of light which held him immobile. The  
light dissipated to nothing and he was free.   
  
Misty looked at the white-cloaked figure more closely and the blue light  
in her eyes winked out in shock. "It's you!"  
  
Valdera squinted at her and began to laugh. She turned back to Ash. "So  
this really was the girl who left you all those years ago! How absolutely  
delightful!" She turned back to Misty. "Well you had your chance,  
Mistaria, now I'll be taking him back."  
  
Misty's eyes began to glow again as she narrowed them. "You just try!  
Seadra, Blizzard!" The shadow behind her hovered into the light  
revealing a large blue, water pokemon with a dragon-like head and sharp  
spines protruding from its tail and shoulders.  
  
"SEA-DRA!" it roared as it began to form a cloud of blue energy above its  
head.  
  
Valdera smiled as she lifted her arm. "White Flare."  
  
As soon as she said the words, a pure white pikachu with glowing, green  
eyes dropped from the ceiling and seemed to explode in a burst of light.  
  
"PIKA!"   
  
Ash and Misty covered their eyes from the blinding whiteness. When the  
light dissipated, Valdera and her white pikachu were nowhere to be seen.  
Instead a twelve-foot tall Machamp with four incredibly muscular arms   
stood on the altar. Its torso and legs were rippling with pure strength  
as it stood there, a feral grin on its frog-like face. Its skin was a  
grey tone and it wore nothing save for a small, black loin-cloth.  
  
Valdera's voice floated in the air, her tone slightly mocking. "Ashura,  
I'll be back for you later when we can be more alone. For now Machampross  
will keep you amused till then." She laughed and then her voice was gone.  
  
Ash stepped backward towards Misty as the huge twelve-foot-tall,  
four-armed, fighting pokemon walked forward slowly. It growled at Ash and  
focused its bright red eyes on him. "I WILL TAKE REVENGE FOR MY FALLEN  
GOLEM BROTHER," it snarled. Then it looked at Misty and an appalling leer  
tilted its lips. "AND YOU WILL BE MINE."  
  
It leaped at her with its four arms out-stretched, growling like a dog.   
  
Misty took a step back. "Seadra, Glacier Spear!"  
  
"SEA-DRA!" Her Seadra glowed a cold blue and shot a large spike of ice   
directly at the attacking pokemon. However, the oversized Machamp punched  
it away almost contemptuously and shattered it on the ground. It  
continued forward and was about to reach her, when a dark blur collided  
into its side so hard, it was knocked through the wall of the chapel  
and several more walls until it was smashed outside into the forest.  
  
Misty turned and saw Ash crouching in place of the Machamp, feet smoking.  
  
"I had it under control," she said forcefully.  
  
Ash lifted his arm. "Pikachu, to me!" As his pokemon leaped on to his  
shoulder, he turned to look at her. "Sorry, but I can't take any chances  
with the person who holds my life in her hands."  
  
He leaped through the hole in the wall and followed the trail of  
destruction left by the Machamp's exit to the outside. Misty jumped after  
him, her blue cloak billowing behind her.  
  
Jumping to the forest floor through the hole left in the white, smoking  
marble of the temple outer-wall, Ash did a forward flip and landed low to   
the ground, his left hand braced for balance. Pikachu landed on all fours  
next to him, his jagged tail in the air and alert.  
  
Misty arrived on the ground behind him with her Seadra hovering over-head  
as Ash slowly rotated his field of vision. The fog, no longer affected by  
Valdera's power of light, was seeping back into the area. He had to find  
Machampross soon and end it before the visibility worsened even more. He  
noted the line of destroyed trees the Master Pokemon left in its flight.  
  
Misty moved forward. "Careful," Ash warned her. "Master Pokemon are  
almost impossible to sense."  
  
"SEISMIC TOSS!"   
  
A tree trunk seemed to come out of nowhere. Ash, Pikachu and Misty leaped  
upward almost narrowly getting smashed by the huge rough wood thrown at   
them.  
  
Ash rotated backward in the air to alight on a tree branch above him  
with Pikachu landing on his shoulder. Misty grasped on to the branch of  
an adjacent tree and swung herself up.  
  
The four-armed monstrosity jumped out of its hiding place behind one of  
the forest trees and ran, ape-like to leap on to the trunk of the branch  
Ash was standing on. It began to climb impossibly fast.  
  
"I DON'T CARE WHAT THE LIGHT MASTER SAID!" it rasped. "I'M GOING TO KILL  
YOU NOW!"  
  
Ash thrust himself off the branch and did a half twist to face the huge  
pokemon as he descended to the ground. "Pikachu!" His pokemon was settled  
into his hand. "Shadow Bolt!" He threw Pikachu straight at the climbing  
Machamp. In midair Pikachu began to glow black and electricity crackled  
as he began to form dark energy around his body.  
  
The Machamp saw the attack and leaped away to a different tree. Pikachu  
exploded through, narrowly missing it, but cutting the tree the Machamp  
was climbing in half. The top of the tree fell down with a crash.  
  
Ash landed on the ground, his cloak billowing behind him, and dodged as  
the Machamp leaped at him again. Its four arms were just a few feet shy  
from grabbing him.  
  
"Seadra! Impale it!" Misty shouted.  
  
"SEA-DRA!"  
  
From behind the Machamp, Misty's pokemon charged, its head lowered to  
skewer it through the spine. Shockingly more agile than it seemed, the  
Machamp flipped backwards, landing behind the seadra and grasped its  
body with its two lower arms. With its upper arms it began to bash the   
water pokemon's head in, with massive overhead swings. The seadra   
squealed in pain and Misty shouted in horror.  
  
"Drop it!" Ash shouted as he jumped up and rotated into a flying spin  
kick striking the Machamp's head. After completing the spin, he used his  
other leg to propel himself away from it by pushing off its face. The  
attack was powerful enough to snap its head to the side and make it roar  
in agony. It dropped the seadra, and grasped its head in pain with its  
two upper arms.  
  
Misty's eyes flashed blue as she formed an ice-blade around her fist and  
leaped off the tree to the attack. The Machamp recovered from Ash's blow   
and grabbed her out of the air with one huge hand. It began to laugh in   
exultation then stopped and screamed in pain as she slashed through its   
wrist with a powerful swipe of her frosty ice-blade.  
  
As she dropped, Misty did a back-flip away and landed safely on her feet.  
"Don't underestimate me," she said dangerously, as she ripped off the   
dismembered hand, which was still hanging around her waist and threw it   
on the ground behind her.  
  
"YOU BITCH!" the Machamp roared as it held its wrist in agony, trying to  
stop the fast leakage of black blood. It grasped another nearby tree and  
broke it off by the base with its two free arms. "SEISMIC TOSS!" it  
shouted again as it threw it at her. Misty expelled a breath and  
desperately tried to jump away but the tree was moving much too fast.  
  
"Pikachu! Thunder Burn!" Ash shouted.  
  
A dark flash of lightning disintegrated the thrown tree into red  
ashes which harmlessly fell around Misty like snow flakes.  
  
Ash turned back to the giant Machamp but it was no longer there.  
  
"NOW YOU DIE!"   
  
From behind, two arms grabbed him like vices of steel and his back  
exploded in pain as he was flipped over and smashed into the ground   
with a huge overhead blow. Ash choked on blood as the Machamp began   
furiously hammering on his chest with as many functioning arms it had   
left. A crater began to form on the hard earth behind his back as he   
was pushed in by the force of the blows.  
  
"I'LL MEGA-PUNCH YOU TO DEATH YOU MISERABLE TRAITOR!"  
  
Pikachu on the ground next to them, snarled and began to power up, but  
one of the Machamp's fists managed to knock him into the growing hole and  
he fell in.  
  
Abruptly, the Machamp roared in pain and it stopped the beating. It stood  
up and ripped an ice spike from its back. It roared again as more spikes  
began to embed themselves into it. It turned around.  
  
Misty's eyes were glowing bright, aura flaring, as icy steam drifted away  
from her hands which she had used to throw the spikes.  
  
"YOU ANNOYING LITTLE GIRL! I WILL ENJOY RIPPING YOU APART!" it shouted.  
Then it leered and growled lecherously. "IN MORE WAYS THEN ONE!" It began  
to run, ape-like at her, on arms and legs. Misty stood her ground and  
desperately hoped that Ash was okay.  
  
All of a sudden, the ground beneath the Machamp's feet ruptured in a  
strong earthquake and it grunted in confusion and pain as it was  
knocked high up in the air by a powerful blast. Ash, in an explosion of  
dirt, rocks and other debris, erupted from the ground and flew up into   
the sky after it. "Pikachu!" he shouted hoarsely. "Shadow Blade!"  
  
Pikachu, hanging on to the back of Ash's cloak yelled in acknowledgment.  
"Pii!" He began to glow black propelled himself into the air above Ash,  
with a crack of thunder.  
  
More dark energy formed around the black electric mouse and the air  
around it seemed to shift as it reformed itself into a black katana, the   
very darkness of the long blade seeming to absorb the light around it.   
Ash grabbed the hilt of the sword in both hands and met the Machamp in   
midair at the highest peak of their flight.  
  
"NOOOOOOO!" the Master Pokemon shouted in fear, seeing the blade of pure  
shadow. It desperately tried to twist away from him in the air but it was   
not to be. Ash grunted as he swung the Pokemon sword, cleaving it   
diagonally through the middle, causing black blood to explode everywhere.   
After the quick execution, he turned a flip and descended back to the   
ground, landing with a solid thump and forming a smoking crater with his   
feet. The black blade hissed with steam as he balanced himself with one   
hand on the ground.  
  
A second later, the two halves of Machampross landed on either side of  
him along with several splashes of blood and other body fluids. Ash stood  
upright and threw the sword into the air. With another crack of thunder,  
it reformed back into Pikachu, who landed on his shoulder.  
  
Misty was standing in front of him, impassive. "I see it was not a  
mistake to force you onto my side."  
  
Ash spat out some blood to the side then looked down at her. "It was a  
mistake ... you just don't know it yet." He dusted his cloak free of dirt  
and leaves. "You seemed to recognise Valdera. How do you know her?" he  
asked, morbidly curious.  
  
Misty looked away from him with a troubled look in her blue eyes. "She's  
my twin sister."  
  
  
*** End of Part 2  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Shadow Bolt   
Type : Shadow / Electricity  
  
Pikachu gathers dark electricity around its body and becomes a deadly  
bolt of destructive energy.  
  
Attack : Thunder Burn   
Type : Fire / Electricity  
  
A powerful lightning attack with elements of fire making it possible to  
burn.  
  
Attack : Shadow Blade   
Type : Shadow / Electricity / Fighting  
  
Pikachu shape-shifts into a long black katana sword. Incredibly sharp  
and powerful. Thought to be an indestructible weapon.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!   
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	3. Remembrances

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 3 - Remembrances  
  
  
Red and menacing, the late afternoon sun and the hot wind encouraged the  
village to burn. Tall flames had engulfed each building like a foreboding  
preview of hell. Soot blew around in the air in choking black waves.  
  
To the side, a tall, muscled figure in a hooded brown cloak stood and  
oversaw as his men ransacked the settlement standing on what used to  
be Route Five. His brown eyes glowed darkly within the shadows of the  
cowl of his cloak. Folding his arms, he watched the tall flames engulf  
each building one by one. The smoke given off by the fires stood out as a  
deep murky black against the cloudy sky and the frightened and pained  
screaming of villagers was loud in the air as they were subdued or killed  
where they stood. While the men of the small settlement were of the  
latter, the women were rounded up in the centre to be dealt with later.  
  
"Die, League scum!" a villager shouted, a young man with dark hair and  
dressed in forest clothing, as he managed to elude two Fire Trainers and  
come at the cloaked figure with a makeshift weapon. It was a long plank  
of wood with sharp nails embedded in it that he had no doubt picked up  
from one of the destroyed buildings.  
  
The villager managed to come within several feet of him before the tall  
brown-cloaked man waved his hand once. The ground exploded beneath the  
villager's feet and he screamed in pain as he was thrown about a dozen  
feet into the air, legs horribly twisted and broken.  
  
A flash of light caught the cloaked man's attention and he turned around.  
Behind him, the scream abruptly cut off as a loud thump announced the  
villager's body meeting the ground.  
  
The white-cloaked woman was still glowing in a radiant light as she stood  
there in front of him, having just returned from wherever she had  
disappeared to earlier. Her eyes glowed blue and even though he could not  
see the rest of her features hidden within the shadows of her hood, he  
knew she was smiling. At her feet, the small white pikachu that was her  
chosen pokemon also seemed to be smiling at him.  
  
"You seem to enjoy this don't you?" she asked in a faintly amused tone.  
  
"Valdera," the brown-cloaked man said, ignoring her jibe. "You shouldn't  
disappear like that when you might be needed."  
  
She looked around herself in scorn, noting the helpless people that had  
no chance against a force of this much League power. They could not even  
run away into the thick forest surrounding them before fire trainers  
directed their pokemon to incinerate them down with their flamethrower  
attacks. "You needed my considerable power to overwhelm this sorry lot?"  
she asked in a disgusted tone.  
  
"The rebels are quite strong, as I should know, and we might have gone up  
against some resistance. Thankfully it seems they are not present within  
this area. We are not to be bothered for the time is coming close at  
hand." He turned around to continue watching his men destroy the village.  
In particular he noted which villager women were nice enough for him to  
take to bed tonight. "Has Golemdor acquired some more supplies from the  
old Pallet area yet?"  
  
"Golemdor is dead."  
  
He whipped back around. "What?" he shouted. "How?"  
  
Valdera continued to smile, her face hidden within the hood. "The  
question is not 'how' but 'who'. Ashura is back. He should be still in  
the outskirts of the Viridian Forest where I left him."  
  
"ASH." At the mention of the name all the memories of the old pain came  
back to him as vivid and real as before they had faded with time. "I  
thought he was dead," he whispered.  
  
"You don't really think that one with the power could be killed that  
easily," Valdera said, somehow sounding pleased.  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're happy about this I see. Just don't  
try to stop me when I go to kill him for good."  
  
She sneered at him. "So you plan on facing him in the open this time,  
instead of working behind his back?"  
  
The brown-cloaked man stood up to his full height of six-feet-seven  
inches and laughed confidently. "We'll let him come to us. By the time he  
gets here it will be too late." He was confused about one thing though.  
"One thing that's bothering me. Why would Ash resurface now? Why would he  
even get involved?"  
  
"That's an easy answer," Valdera said as she knelt down to scratch her  
pikachu on the head. "My sister is with him."  
  
His brown eyes glowed even darker. "MISTY!"  
  
  
  
  
  
The small, hot spring was warm and pleasant as Ash stood within the  
stomach-high waters and scrubbed soap suds all over his naked body. It  
had been a few days or so since he had a 'real' bath and he was  
exceedingly happy to have one now. They were fortunate he had remembered  
this old camping site near the outskirts of the Viridian Forest with this  
nearby bathing spot.  
  
His chest was sore from the various fights he had fought recently, not to  
mention his arms, but the warm water was soothing. Coupled with his high  
healing rate, he could almost imagine that he felt himself getting better  
by the second.  
  
He sensed someone behind him and his guard rose up. But he did not turn  
around. It was Misty. He continued to wash himself as he heard clothing  
fall to the rocky grounds surrounding the spring. She seemed to be  
undressing.  
  
"I thought we agreed that we would take turns and that I would be first  
seeing as how I was injured," he said flatly, still not acknowledging her  
with a look.  
  
There was no answer for a while except for the sound and feel of the  
water behind him parting to accommodate another body. "I couldn't wait  
that long," she said in a faint tone. "Besides, I thought we should  
talk."  
  
"About your sister?" he asked. "Yes, you never did tell me you had a   
sister. A twin sister at that. Why is that? I thought we told each   
other everything."  
  
"To put it frankly, it's still painful to talk about her," Misty said   
softly. "At that time we thought she was dead. She and I were very close.  
Sometimes people don't understand just how twins feel about one another."  
Her tone went flat. "Later after you and I went our separate ways and you  
disappeared, even from the League, I learned she was alive and well. As a  
Pokemon Master. A Master for the other side."  
  
Ash thought about it. "She never did tell me where she came from."   
  
"So it's true that you *were* seeing each other when you were both in the  
League then," Misty said. It was not a question but a statement.  
  
Ash shrugged. He reached around to do his back then winced in pain as a   
muscle in his shoulder tightened.  
  
"Here let me do that," Misty said as he felt her come up behind him. He  
was about to move away and protest when he felt her soft hands touch him.  
All at once memories of the past assailed him, days just like this one  
where they bathed each other, and he just could not move.  
  
She kneaded the soap softly into his shoulders and back and squeezed the  
tight knots in his muscles and smoothed them to nothingness. Unknowingly  
he sighed and leaned back against her as she worked her magic over him.  
The magic she had not lost in over five years. The magic that made him  
clay to be moulded by her hands. He closed his eyes and remembered ...  
  
  
  
  
  
It seemed all he could hear was the cheering of the crowds surrounding  
the ring. The Pokemon League Stadium building was packed to the maximum  
it could hold. Streamers and confetti showered all around him and banners  
were opened hailing the new Pokemon League Champion.  
  
"Yep, Misty!" Ash shouted as he turned around to his long-time companion  
and friend who had front seat in the sidelines - although sometimes they  
had seemed more like enemies. "You're now looking at a true Pokemon  
Master!" Exceedingly happy with himself, he turned his trusty old red cap  
around backwards and struck a pose. "Not only that, but champion of the  
Pokemon League!"  
  
Pikachu, tired, but still conscious from the long drawn out battle jumped  
up on his shoulder and let out a victory cry. He had been the one pokemon  
Ash had left that would defeat Gary's Jolteon in a long drawn-out battle.  
"Pika! Pika!"  
  
Misty laughed and ran towards him before they engulfed each other in a  
giant hug. Even Pikachu was squashed within the tight embrace. "I knew  
you could do it, Ash!" she said with tears in her eyes. Ash swung her  
around in his arms, which wasn't so hard now that he had grown a bit  
during the years they travelled with one another. In fact he had been  
taller than her for quite some time.   
  
As they hugged each other, Ash became aware of another feeling. The  
feeling that this was all worthwhile because Misty was here. Had always   
been here, right by his side. That his whole journey to become a Master   
was second-best to meeting this sometimes strange, but cute, red-haired   
girl. He didn't know what he would have done without her. Ironically,   
perhaps wrecking her bike was the best thing he could have ever done.  
  
Behind them, Gary sat down dejectedly on the ring's floor with his  
poke-balls scattered all around him. He had not been champion for long  
before Ash had won the title from him. His cheering squad was silent.  
  
Brock who had come to watch Ash win the finals, looked on with a strange  
expression on his face.  
  
  
  
  
  
"So what are you going to do now?" Misty asked hesitantly.  
  
Ash nodded at Professor Oak. "Well, I've been talking to the Professor  
here and it seems that the pokedex still hasn't recorded all of the  
different types of pokemon ... so I'm gonna travel the world again and  
fill this thing up to the full!"  
  
"Yes, yes ..." Professor Oak agreed. "There are still many pokemon out  
there waiting to be discovered!"  
  
"And besides, you know me, Misty. I can't stick around in one place  
trying to act all important-like to be the League Champion! So I've  
decided to let Gary take my place."  
  
"WHAT!" everyone who was listening shouted. Gary seemed to come back to  
life as he stood up. "You mean it, Ash?" he asked, delightfully.  
  
Even the Professor was shocked. "But I didn't think you were going to  
give up your title! You could have both been League Champion and gone on   
this assignment!"  
  
"And you worked so hard for this moment! You never gave up!" Misty said.  
"All this time, you've never given up." Her voice also held a sad note.  
"Besides if you leave, I-I might not see you as much anymore ..."  
  
Ash held up his hand as he removed his red cap, letting out his spiky  
black hair. He put it on Pikachu's head who was crouched down at his  
feet. "No, no! I've decided. If I stayed as the League Champion, I  
would've had to come back every tournament to uphold my title. And  
frankly, I think I've just discovered what I want most in life ... and  
surprisingly, it's not to be the Champ ... I-It's something else." He  
looked directly at Misty. "I know we haven't exactly been the perfect  
couple, you and I ... I, I ... always fighting and that, but we were a  
couple and it just wouldn't be the same without you ... so wha-what I'm  
trying to say is ... oh heck, wouldyouliketogowithme?"  
  
Misty's eyes watered. "You really mean it? Of course I'll go with you!"  
She ran over to him and they hugged again, laughing and spinning each  
other around. Everyone sighed tiredly. They all knew the couple were  
inseparable and that no matter what Ash decided to do, Misty was no doubt  
part of his future.  
  
"And besides, you still owe me a bike!" Misty said.  
  
"Aw, you still going on about that?" Ash said, rolling his light-brown  
eyes. "It was a crummy bike anyway! Broke after one fall!"  
  
Misty's eyes flashed. "Excuse me? That bike was the most, most! I  
assembled it myself!"  
  
"Maybe that was why the spearows almost got us then!"  
  
"Why you!"  
  
Soon the hugging turned into a different sort of hugging. One that had  
more to do with various wrestling manoeuvres than a show of affection.  
  
Pikachu at their feet, sighed. "Pi-ka-chuuu."  
  
Everyone shook their heads. "You can say that again," they echoed.  
  
The only one who wasn't paying attention was Gary who was laughing as he   
put on his League Champion badge and struck poses in the mirror.  
  
However as Ash and Misty struggled and rolled along the ground, wrapped  
in a tight embrace, they each heard the other say softly, at the same   
time, "I love you." Then they laughed and continued the wrestling.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash's eyes snapped open and he abruptly stepped out of the water and on  
to the bank to where his clothes were draped over a log, drying his skin  
with dark energy as he did so. He looked at his pile of clothes and boots  
and concentrated, dissolving them to shadow, which then moved and crawled  
up his body before he solidified them back into place. Then he summoned  
his black cloak back over them.  
  
"You shouldn't do that," he said dangerously, still not facing her. He  
did not want to see her nakedness, he didn't know what he would do then.  
Whatever, it would only have led to hurt in the end.  
  
Her voice came softly to him along a passing breeze. "You were tense. And  
it's not like we haven't done this before."  
  
"And not likely to happen again either," he said. "I'll admit I'm your  
slave for the meantime. But I will not also be your toy to play with as   
you wish, then abandon. I will not." And then he stalked off back to the  
campsite where Pikachu was waiting and staying on guard. The  
leaves and foliage crackled loudly underfoot.  
  
Unseen, Misty wiped a tear from her eye and leaned over the stony bank of  
the spring, covering her face with her arms. "I-It was your fault t-too."  
  
  
  
  
  
Later, around the campfire, they each ate silently. They had caught some  
fish, thanks to Misty and had cooked it over the open fire. Only Pikachu  
made a noise as he happily slurped on an open bottle of ketchup. But  
overall, the silence was almost oppressive. The only thing that Ash was  
feeling grateful for, was that the fish were not Magikarp, which were  
nothing but scales and bone.  
  
Again, the clouded sky obscured most of the moon's light so the fire was  
the only thing keeping the darkness of the night at bay. Aside from the  
hooting of the wild pidgey, the outskirts of the Viridian forest was  
also largely quiet, mirroring the situation in the camp.  
  
Suddenly Misty let out a large scream and jumped on top of the log she  
was sitting on. The plate of food she was holding flew high into the air.  
Ash, startled almost to death by the scream, leapt up.   
  
"Misty? What the hell?"  
  
Then the plate of food landed on his head with a wet splat. Pikachu saw  
it and started laughing.  
  
"Pika, pika, pika!"  
  
Misty was still screaming when Ash, annoyed now, ripped the plate of food  
off his head. "Misty ..." his eyes widened when he saw what she was going  
to do. She had cupped both her hands in a fist and was about to launch a  
huge ball of cold blue energy at a small caterpie at the foot of the log  
she was standing on.  
  
"A bug! I hate bugs!" Misty was shouting in panic. "Kill it, kill it,  
kill it!"  
  
However, before she could shoot the ball of ice at it, the caterpie  
jumped up on the log and began to hug her leg. Misty's eyes rolled up in  
her face and she fainted, toppling over backwards on the grassy ground,   
blue cloak billowing open, revealing long, bare slender legs underneath.  
  
Ash tried not to look as he fished out one of Misty's poke-balls from her  
backpack and threw it. The ball opened up over the caterpie's head and  
enveloped it in a thin beam of blue energy before swallowing it inside.   
However Ash was surprised when the ball opened again and it came out.   
The caterpie seemed to make a face at him as it did so and then leapt   
away into the bushes.  
  
Pikachu continued to laugh at him as he scratched his head. "Some things  
never change," he sighed as he looked over to the unconscious Misty. A  
piece of fish fell from the top of his head. He smiled a small smile. He  
really needed a reason to smile just now. He had lived with depression a  
long time, it seemed.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was almost evening of the next day, with the red light of the late   
afternoon sun low in the sky, when they spotted the smoke rising in the  
distance. It could have only been coming from the small town that was   
built by the ruins of Pewter City.  
  
Misty's mouth tightened as she saw it. "Let's go."  
  
They began to run through the remainder of the forest, the smell of  
destruction carried to them by the north wind and when they reached the  
summit of the large hill overlooking the town, they fell face-down on  
their chests upon the grassy underbrush and observed the action.  
  
There seemed to be some sort of battle going on down there among the  
ruins and the town. Ash recognised the uniforms of League Trainers as  
well as what could only be people of the Rebellion. Fireballs seemed to  
be flying everywhere as the League Trainers were predominantly of the  
fire type. However, unfortunately for the other force, they looked to be  
more of the grass type and appeared to be taking quite a beating.  
  
"That's Erika down there ..." Misty whispered, pointing at an elegant  
green-cloaked figure that was battling someone on horseback on the  
outskirts of the ruins. It was a man dressed in a blood-red cloak. In his  
hand he carried a long, red sword that looked to be made purely of fire.  
The green-cloaked figure dived as the man almost ran her down with his  
horse, narrowly missing her. Then rolling around to her feet, she shot  
what looked like spores out of her hands to retaliate. But a large fiery  
aura surrounded the man and his horse, burning the spores to ashes. Ash  
saw that it was not an ordinary horse, but a Rapidash, the fastest  
pokemon horse in existence.  
  
"We've got to help them," Misty whispered again.  
  
"Is that an order, Mistress?" Ash said, already planning on how to  
dispatch the force anyway.  
  
"Well if you need to be ordered than consider it an order," she said  
hotly.  
  
"Okay then here's what we'll do. You go after the Fire Master battling  
Erika since your element is strong against fire. Meanwhile I'll take out  
the other Fire Trainers since I can fight well against numbers."  
  
"So you get to order me around?" Misty said as she got up and pulled her  
hood over her head to hide her long red hair. "You're just lucky that I  
had the same thought. Alright, let's go," She whipped a loose fold of  
her long blue cloak around one arm and began to run towards the western  
side of the town near the outskirts of the Pewter City ruins.   
  
Ash got up and lowered the hood of his own black cloak. He looked down  
at his small, black electric mouse. "Pikachu, you heard the plan."  
  
"Pika," Pikachu acknowledged as he leapt onto Ash's backpack and crawled  
inside the opening. Then he dashed off to the eastern side of the town,  
low to the ground, black cloak whipping behind in the wind. Running down  
the hill on silent feet, and using the trees for cover, he threw his  
senses out to locate all the trainers on the hostile force. His lips  
tightened grimly. He was about to do what he did best.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Bulbasaur!" the young girl with long dark brown hair and dressed in a  
green blouse and skirt shouted. "Leech Seed!"   
  
"Bulba!" At her feet, the small greenish frog-like pokemon, with a round  
plant on its back, shot a hail of seeds at her opponent.  
  
"Arcanine!" the ratty-looking man dressed in red countered. "Fire Spin!"  
The large, fire-red dog growled loudly and began to weave fire at them.   
  
The girl screamed and dove down as the fire attack blew right through the  
seeds and wrapped her bulbasaur in hot flames. The bulbasaur let out an  
anguished death-cry then crumbled into black ashes.  
  
"Bulbasaur!" the girl cried, tears streaming down her face as she knelt  
in the dirt.  
  
The Fire Trainer laughed as he put his hands on his hips. "Grass pokemon  
are no match for the most powerful pokemon! Fire!" He tweaked his thin  
black moustache. "Now Arcanine, bite her head off. We have other Plants  
to fry!" He laughed again at his own joke.  
  
The oversized red dog, growled and leaped. The girl screamed in fright.  
  
Then a dark blur, cloaked in the coming evening's shadows seemed to shoot  
out of nowhere and knock the Arcanine away. It yelped in pain as it  
smashed, unconscious, into the side of a stone wall so hard it knocked   
chunks of rock everywhere.  
  
The Fire Trainer screamed and fell backwards as a piece of stone shrapnel  
shot into his eye splattering blood everywhere. On his hands and knees,  
he looked up to see a tall menacing figure in a long black cloak standing  
in front of the plant girl. Its face was hidden in the shadows of the  
hood, golden eyes visible as they glowed in the dark.  
  
"A-A Master!" the ratty man screamed in fright when he spotted the cloak.  
"H-Help!" With that last cry, he fell unconscious from the trauma of his  
ravaged eye.  
  
Several unattached League Fire Trainers came running towards his call and  
surrounded them in a three-point triangle formation.  
  
"Another Master?" one of the newcomers said, a pretty woman with medium  
length blonde hair and dressed in a red dress with a logo of the league  
symbol wrapped in fire on her chest. Behind her stood a Charmeleon,  
puffing out small clouds of smoke in anticipation of a battle. Its red  
lizard eyes watched menacingly. "But I thought they only had one in their  
group, and a Grass Master at that!"  
  
The black-cloaked figure turned slightly to observe them.  
  
"But I don't know of an element that corresponds to that colour," another  
of the newcomers said, puzzled. It was an older man also dressed in the  
red uniform of the Fire division of the Pokemon League.  
  
"Who cares," said the last of the other trainers to arrive. It was a tall  
handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes. "I always wanted to fight a  
real Pokemon Master. Masters are highly over-rated in my opinion," he   
said, winking at the woman Fire Trainer as he threw a poke-ball at his  
feet. "Let's take him, Belle! Go Magmar!"   
  
The poke-ball opened and a flash of red light expanded to form a large  
bipedal lizard-like fire pokemon with a spiky back and horns of flame. It  
hissed. "Mag-mar!"  
  
The black-cloaked Master snapped his fingers and a little black pokemon  
jumped out from the pack strapped to his back. It landed on all fours by  
his feet with its jagged tail in the air. "Sorry about this, but I have  
to finish you all quick," he said, his voice low and dangerous.  
"Pikachu, Dark Shock. Rapid Fire - now."  
  
The arrogant Fire Trainer sneered. "That's not a Pikachu, you fool!  
Pikachu's aren't black-yee-arghhhh!" he gurgled and fell over as a thin  
bolt of black lightning shot into his chest and through his heart.  
  
The 'pikachu' began to fire more bolts all around itself from its jagged  
tail.  
  
The Magmar roared at the dispatching of its trainer and began to charge  
them, but two dark shocks shot into its eyes, and its head exploded in a  
hail of fire. The body walked around drunkenly for a few seconds before  
it decided it was dead and fell over, its tail twitching before the fire  
on its tip winked out.  
  
"Dive!" Belle, the woman fire trainer shouted and leapt to the ground,  
but not before a bolt hit the ground by her feet and she was flung back  
like a rag-doll to land unconscious several metres away. Her charmeleon  
was not so fortunate as it was struck in the tail, the whole length of it  
blown clean off at the base not even leaving a stump. It blinked a few   
times, shocked at the loss of its tail before it toppled over, dead.  
  
The older trainer by that time had already run away. He had recalled some  
old stories at the last minute about a so-called 'Shadow Master' and had   
decided it might be prudent to retreat.  
  
"Okay, Pikachu, that's enough. Let's go get the rest," Ash said. He  
looked at the girl he had saved. She was looking at him with an almost  
worshipful look on her face. Ack. Trouble there. "Girl," he said. "You  
hide somewhere. You're defenceless here without a pokemon. Don't worry,  
this will be quick." And with that bit of advice, he motioned Pikachu to  
leap onto his shoulder and turned around with a whip of his cloak. He  
sprinted off in the direction the old man had run.   
  
The long folds of the black cloak ruffled behind him in the wind as the  
Master ran towards the centre of town. The girl looked at him until he  
darted behind a building and was no longer visible.   
  
Then she sighed, light brown eyes shining. "I think I'm in love ..."  
  
  
  
  
  
Erika screamed as she dived behind the ruins of a smoking building,  
narrowly dodging yet another charge by the Fire Master on the Rapidash.  
She breathed hard as she propped herself up by the back against the old  
stone wall. She noticed the lower hem of her green cloak was on fire so  
she looked at it and concentrated. The fire was extinguished and the hem  
rebuilt itself out of green energy so that it looked like it had never  
been burnt in the first place. Sighing, she wiped the sweat from her  
forehead with a hand and swept the blue-black hair of her bangs back from  
her face. After adjusting her red hair-band to keep it that way, she  
crouched, alert.  
  
"Time to die, Grass Master," Blaine's mocking voice drifted back to her  
along the hot wind. "This is what you get for interfering in League  
business. Your plants are no match for me, let alone a Master Pokemon."  
  
"BURN! BURN!" came a low growling. Erika tightened her cloak around  
herself and shivered. Blaine was riding the Master Pokemon of fire.  
She could not last long with her always on the defensive. She had to  
counter-attack. But her favourite pokemon, Gloom had been taken out  
earlier in the battle and she didn't want to risk any of her pokemon  
almost dying like Gloom had when he was caught in Rapidasher's Fire  
Sprint attack. But she had no choice now.  
  
"Venusaur, I choose you!" she said as stood up and threw a pokeball at  
the ground. The last evolution of Bulbasaur came out in a sparkle of  
green light. Her green eyes shone brilliantly as she shouted, "Solar  
Beam, now! Shoot through this rubble and get them on the other side!"  
  
The huge grass pokemon shouted, "SAUR!" and collected the last remaining  
light of the day in the leaves on its back. The energy on its back glowed  
before it fired a huge beam of powerful light through the building she   
was using as shelter. The stone melted and the wood vaporised as the   
intense laser beam exploded through like a boiling spear through butter.  
  
Blaine was surprised by the attack, but the Rapidash took matters into  
its own hands and leaped a dozen feet into the air, avoiding the beam.  
The Fire Master spotted them from high above and smiled as he now had the  
advantage. "A nice trick, Erika, but now it ends!" he shouted in triumph  
as he swung his fiery sword. A huge tongue of flame shot downwards from  
the tip.  
  
Venusaur grunted and knocked Erika away before the flame hit. Erika  
shouted in fright as the flame raked along her pokemon's back and set   
its flower on fire.  
  
"Blastoise! Water Gun!" a familiar sounding woman's voice shouted. Twin  
streams of water shot on to the Venusaur's back putting the fire out. A  
second later there was huge crash as a huge turtle pokemon landed next to  
them with a blue-cloaked figure riding on its back.  
  
Erika recognised her instantly. "Misty?"  
  
"In a sec!" the Water Master said as she looked up. "Blastoise,   
Ice Beam! Blast them out of the sky!"  
  
"BLAST! BLAST!" her pokemon acknowledged as it began to shoot streams of  
cold ice from the huge cannons on its shell.  
  
Blaine and the Rapidash were still in the air as they tried to dodge the  
shots but they had lost some mobility and were hit by one cold ice beam.  
It was enough. The Rapidash neighed in pain as it crashed to the ground.  
Blaine was thrown off, but he managed to turn a somersault, red cloak  
billowing out, and landed safely on his feet. The Rapidash, however, was  
not as fortunate and crash landed in the nearby ruins of another  
building, creating a small explosion. Dust and smoke flew everywhere.  
  
When the dust settled, the Fire Master stood before them, red cloak  
flying in the wind. He removed his hood with one hand revealing an older  
man's face and long white hair. His dark eyes glowed red as he squinted  
at them. "Mistaria," Blaine stated as he smoothed his cloak around his  
body, settling it. "You should not have interfered. Now I'll have to kill  
you too. And you know I've always liked you." He bent his legs and lifted  
his fire sword to the ready, clutching it in both hands.  
  
Misty backflipped off the back of her Blastoise and landed on her feet  
beside Erika. "Blastoise, return," she said calmly as she withdrew her  
pokemon back into its ball with a thin beam of blue light. She snapped   
it back on to her belt and then she too lowered her hood behind her  
head, letting her long red hair flap free behind her. Her blue eyes  
glowed coldly as she assumed a ready position, lowering her centre of  
gravity with a slight bend of the knees and turning slightly. "Well   
*you* have always annoyed *me*. It's time to act your age, Blaine, and   
retire."  
  
"Besides, men like you, ugly on the inside as well as the outside, don't  
deserve to live," Erika added, as she also prepared to fight, her green   
eyes flashing.  
  
"We shall see who is the one to 'retire'," Blaine countered as he lifted  
his sword horizontally in front of him. "Two against one? I'll just have  
to even the odds." From the hilt of his fire sword, another blade of  
flame emerged forming a long double-bladed weapon. "Enough talk, let us  
see who are the real Masters!" He charged.  
  
Misty raised both of her arms and formed short ice blades around each  
hand, while Erika opened her palms out in front of her and a long, ebony  
staff of wood materialised along them.  
  
And so the fight began.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash ran through the town with Pikachu riding on his shoulder. As they  
spotted each Fire Trainer and their pokemon, he pointed at them and  
Pikachu would shoot a deadly bolt of shadow electricity. Each  
accurate shot dispatched whatever it hit quickly and efficiently. Soon,  
the League Trainers caught on to what was happening with their group  
members dropping like flies and a general panic ensued. The battle with  
the Grass Trainers was forgotten in favour of one thing. Escape with  
their lives.  
  
A short while later, the town was empty save for the green clothed Rebel  
Trainers and their pokemon. This was excepting the unconscious or dead  
bodies of the League Trainers which had been left lying along the narrow  
streets or wherever they had been struck down.  
  
An earthquake seemed to rumble along the ground. Ash turned west and saw  
blue, red and green energy flare up into the sky. "Seems like they're  
having fun," Ash said to Pikachu. "What say we join them?"  
  
"Pika-pi!" Pikachu agreed.  
  
After directing the Grass Trainers to look through the fallen bodies of  
the League Trainers and tie up the ones who were still alive, Ash turned  
and sprinted off towards the Pewter City ruins.  
  
  
  
  
  
Red and blue sparks flew as Misty stepped backwards and blocked several  
quick spinning slashes of Blaine's double swords of fire with her short  
ice blades. Erika behind him, spun her staff around and thrusted, but the  
Fire Master twisted and managed to block it with the lower length of his  
sword creating flares of green and red fire to shower in the air.  
  
The only sounds for several minutes came from the three Master's slow  
breathing and the clashing of weapons as they continued their fast deadly  
battle, each slashing, thrusting and parrying so that it seemed almost  
like a stalemate, neither side gaining an advantage. Then Misty launched  
her own offensive, blocking Blaine's sword with her ice blades crossed  
together, then spinning around in a quick roundhouse kick, the blue folds  
of her cloak whipping around. Blaine barely dodged it by breaking the  
weapons lock and turning a backflip before landing and blocking another  
thrust by Erika who was at his other side this time, and getting more  
aggressive with her staff.  
  
"You are both very good," Blaine acknowledged as he continued to block  
thrusts from both sides. "It seems a waste of talent with you two in the  
rebellion when you are all about to be crushed in the coming days  
anyway."  
  
Erika sped up her fighting so that her staff was almost a green blur. Her  
shoulder-length black hair waved around as she moved gracefully, green  
cloak drifting around her body. "And what do you mean by that?"  
  
Blaine also sped up his thrusts and parrying, matching her. "Perhaps you  
will find out if I leave you alive."  
  
Then disaster struck. As Misty edged backwards, with Blaine advancing on  
her and Erika following, she stepped on an uneven rock and lost her  
balance for a split second. A split second was all that Blaine needed as  
he spun one rotation and sliced a vertical path with his weapon that  
would have cleaved her in two if it hit. Erika gasped and desperately  
took a twisting step forward sacrificing a long angry slash on her side  
to knock him off-centre. It gave Misty enough time to block the deadly  
strike, but that allowed Blaine to kick her feet out from under her. He  
followed up with roundhouse kick in the stomach sending her flying away  
backward for several yards.  
  
As Misty turned a backward flip to land on her feet, she exclaimed a  
breath in shock as Blaine then managed to twist around and kick Erika to  
the ground. Fortunately, however, he only managed to slash her along the  
arm as she tried to roll away. Cursing, Blaine lifted his arm and shot a  
fireball at her from his palm, which missed her head but knocked a large  
stone into her temple, knocking Erika unconscious. Then just as he was  
about to land the killing blow on the helpless woman, Misty managed to  
catch her second wind and took one long, extended somersault leap over to  
slash the Fire Master along the back with one of her ice blades, cutting  
through the red cloak and opening a long deep cut along his back.  
  
Blaine screamed and spun around with his double sword to re-engage her in  
battle. "Naughty, naughty," he admonished her. "Didn't your mother ever  
tell you it was rude to attack someone in the back?" he said,  
interspacing his statements with several quick thrusts of his deadly fire  
weapon. Misty parried them as best she could, and then she saw an  
opening within his offence that hadn't been there before. It seemed that  
she had enraged him just enough with her strike that he was attacking  
just a tiny bit too wildly. That double sword of his was dangerous, and  
had a lot of reach, but up close, the length of it made it slightly  
unwieldy for close-in fighting. Used too offensively, she could take  
advantage of that weakness.  
  
"Yes, and she also told me it was rude to do *this*!" she said as she  
quickly stepped within his guard, sacrificing a few shallow cuts on her  
arms, but managing to block most of the swords with her ice blades. As  
soon as she was inside, she kicked him in the crotch as hard as she could  
with one of her thick black boots and rolled backwards.  
  
Blaine whimpered a pathetic squeak as he dropped his swords, the flames  
winking out, and slowly sunk to his knees clutching his abused privates.  
Misty finished him off with a powerful kick to the chin, snapping his  
neck, and propelling him backward in the air, flipping around crazily  
before landing like a broken toy on top of a ruined stone wall. The Red  
cloaked Fire Master's body seemed to sigh, before going up in flames and  
exploding into black ashes.  
  
"I guess I missed most of the action," an amused voice said.   
  
Misty turned around and saw Ash and Pikachu standing at the edges of the  
ruins. She smiled. "I guess so," she agreed.  
  
Suddenly the huge pile of rubble that the Rapidash had landed in   
earlier exploded in a vertical column of flame which reached several   
dozen feet into the sky. When the tower of fire dissipated, the huge   
Fire Horse stood within the shallow crater it created out of the large   
broken debris of the old building it had crashed into.  
  
"BURN! BURN!" the Rapidash snorted as it clawed the ground with a sharp  
hoof, getting ready to charge them. The horn on its head began to glow  
red.  
  
"I guess not," Misty said, disappointed. "Blastoise, let's finish this,"  
she said as she again let out the huge turtle pokemon from its poke-ball   
with a flash of blue light.  
  
Ash looked at it and his eyes widened as he recognised it. "That wouldn't  
be my old Squirtle and later, Wartortle, which I gave to you would it?"  
  
Even the Blastoise had recognised him, even within the confines of the  
black hooded cloak. "BLAS-TOISE!" it said happily.  
  
"Of course it is," Misty said, exasperated. "But reunions can come later,  
we have this Master Pokemon of Fire to deal with first."  
  
Ash looked at it boredly. "Oh, right." He stared at it in the eyes.  
"Sorry about this Rapidasher, old boy, but I'm going to have to finish  
you off quick."  
  
"BURN!" the fire horse snorted in rage. Ash prepared himself as it began  
to charge. Then suddenly, strangely, crystal clear water seemed to rise  
up from the ground all around and surrounding it. The Rapidash neighed in  
absolute fright and was about to jump out of the growing circle, but it  
was too late and the ring of water sealed itself up in a tight bubble  
trapping it inside.  
  
Ash and Misty watched, enthralled as the water quickly solidified into an  
immense, solid block of ice. The Master Pokemon of Fire inside seemed to  
implode within itself, turning into soggy ashes. On the side of the newly  
formed ice-berg, more ice grew, forming outward, which then separated and  
seemed to form itself into the shape of a woman.  
  
The woman of ice began to walk toward them, warm colour beginning to   
replace the translucency of the frozen water. Soon, a familiar-looking,  
beautiful young woman with long, blue hair stood in front of them.  
The woman smiled, her light-brown eyes shining. "Remember me, Ash?" Her  
voice held a note of musical laughter.  
  
"Hey, Duplica," Ash said, smiling as he finally recognised her. He looked  
at Misty, whose face had turned a brilliant shade of red. "But before we  
go on, I think you better put on some clothes. You're upsetting Misty."  
  
"Oh." Duplica let out a light laugh. She waved her hand over her body and  
a small, tight black dress with a mini-skirt formed over her skin that  
just barely covered the unmentionables. "That better?"  
  
Ash turned. Misty's face was still as red as her hair. "Um, I can't  
tell."  
  
Misty swore something about insensitive men underneath her breath.  
  
  
*** End Part 3  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Dark Shock   
Type : Shadow / Electricity  
  
A thin bolt of black lightning is shot out from the pikachu's tail.  
Although weak looking, the bolt is incredibly powerful. Can also cause  
chemical reactions when in contact with fire.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Yeah I admit I blatantly took the double fire-sword thingy from Star Wars  
^-^. Damn, isn't Darth Maul just the coolest, coolest?  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	4. Rebellion

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 4 - Rebellion  
  
  
Shining down brilliantly, the full moon was bright through the cloudless   
night sky over the Rebel's campsite just east of the Pewter Settlement.   
The grassy plains were populated with over a dozen large green tents and   
in the spaces between them, the Rebel Trainers and villagers alike,   
walked, discussing the repairs to the small town or the battle that had  
just taken place several hours ago. The sound of men and women working   
to rebuild parts of the town to the west was loud and the night's air   
was cool and clear, a distinct contrast to the screams, heat and smoke   
of the earlier battle.  
  
Inside a tent to the far south-east of the camp, Misty was sitting down,  
cross-legged, in conversation with Erika, whose side was being tended to  
by a nurse.  
  
Erika's green eyes were flashing at her friend. "You're crazy! What is  
*Ashura* the Forbidden Master doing here?" She winced briefly as the  
nurse, a young red-haired girl, continued stitching her side with a  
needle and thread. "Why get involved with him again?"  
  
Misty wore a stubborn look on her face, and brushed her long red hair  
off her shoulders with her hands. "He's helping us against the League.  
Didn't you see how he drove off those Fire Trainers while we were busy  
with Blaine and Rapidasher?"  
  
"And that's what I'm puzzled about," Erika said with a frown on her face.  
"Why should he help us? Him especially. Even though he's not exactly  
chummy with the League any more, last time we saw him he was fighting  
against us!"  
  
Misty looked away and closed her blue eyes. "I've blood-bonded him."  
  
Erika began to rise, shocked, but then winced again as the young nurse  
held her firm then began to bandage her side. "You didn't," she said,  
aghast.  
  
Misty looked back at the horrified look on her friend's face. She nodded.  
  
"How long has he got then?"  
  
"Less than a week." Misty's face was serious.  
  
"You're going to let him ..."  
  
Her blue eyes watered and she slumped forward with her hands in her face,  
her strong facade breaking down. "You know I can't do that."  
  
Erika gentled her voice to calm her. "Funny. I thought you hated him.  
Ever since that day. You do remember the only thing that will let you  
stop the deterioration of his system don't you?"  
  
Misty nodded again.  
  
The young nurse finally finished bandaging Erika's side. The Grass Master  
looked at her and smiled. "Thanks, Joy. Even though you haven't seen ten  
summers yet, you are just as good as your mother was. You may go now."  
  
The young girl smiled back. "Thank you, Mistress Erika. I do my best."  
She looked at Misty. "Do you need anything Mistress Misty?"  
  
Misty lifted her arms, lowering the blue sleeves of her cloak, and showed  
that the cuts she received on them had already been tended to.  
  
"By your leave then," Joy said. And with that, the young nurse stood up  
and walked out of the tent, her medical bag clutched in one hand.  
  
Erika looked back at her friend as she put her favourite red hair-band  
back in her dark hair. Misty seemed to have recovered herself and now  
sat, smiling sadly, as she looked through the open tent flaps at Joy's  
back as she walked among the the other tents. "By the way, thanks  
for saving my life."  
  
Misty nodded absently as she played with a fold of her cloak. "Ditto."  
Then her eyes narrowed as she turned her head slightly.  
  
Erika followed her field of vision. It was Ash's tent.  
  
  
  
  
  
"So how have ya been Ashy-boy?" Duplica said as she leaned back against a  
cushion and twirled a long strand of dark-blue hair around her little  
finger. "I haven't seen you since before the Dark Wars."  
  
Ash kneeled as he poured her a cup of hot chocolate from a thermos then  
turned around and handed it to her. "As well as could be expected I  
suppose." He turned back and went to pour himself a cup.  
  
"Pika!"  
  
Ash sighed, and poured Pikachu some in his cup. "Now what am I going to  
drink from?" Ash asked him, exasperated, putting the cup on the floor,  
where Pikachu could lap from it.  
  
"Here, Ashy," Duplica said as she raised her free hand. From her palm a  
lump formed outwards, then formed into a mug. Not a plain one either, but  
a white one with a little cute picture of a violet Ditto on it, its  
amoeba-like body holding a smiley face.   
  
Ash looked at it, shrugged, then picked it up from her hand. "Thanks,  
Duplica." He poured himself some chocolate, then sat back, setting down  
the thermos, and sipped. He looked her over. She was still wearing the  
black dress that hugged her slim, curvy form to perfection. When he came  
to her face, he saw that she noticed his inspection. He smiled  
unashamedly. "Well you're certainly looking well. That body real?"  
  
Duplica huffed good-naturedly. "Of course its real! I can't stay in  
a different form for *too* long, otherwise I get tired." Then she smiled  
devilishly at him, her red lips tilting at the corners. "Of course, if  
you'd rather I looked like this ..."  
  
Ash watched, enthralled, as her body seemed to re-mould itself. Then he  
fell backwards, face turing red as when she was finished, it was Misty  
who was sitting there in the sexy black dress. On Misty's all too  
familiar face, she wore a petulant look, ice-blue eyes staring sultrily  
at him over a pert nose.  
  
"Oh, Ashy-boy!" she said in Misty's voice, but voiced low and sexily. She  
shook her head once, flapping her long red hair loose over her shoulders  
then licked her lips at him and blinked long dark lashes.  
  
"Pi-ka-chu," Pikachu said, amazed. But then the small, black electric  
mouse lost interest and went back to lapping from up hot chocolate from  
the cup.  
  
Ash's face was still red as he sat back up. "That's not funny. Misty and  
I aren't together any more."  
  
The Misty look-alike got a shocked look on her face. Then it blurred and  
morphed back into Duplica, who still had the shocked look. "What do you  
mean? You two were inseparable back then!"  
  
"Well, obviously not now. I'd rather not talk about it," Ash said looking  
down into the bubbles in his drink.  
  
Duplica looked sadly at him. Then she smiled, hoping to cheer him up.  
"Okay, but you know you always have me. I can be the woman of your  
dreams!" she said, laughing. "You just have to tell me what she looks  
like."  
  
The corner of Ash's mouth tilted ironically and he brushed the black hair  
that fell in front of his eyes away with a hand. "Well, then you don't  
have to change at all," he said, joking with her. Then he felt a tugging  
on his cloak and looked down.  
  
"Pika?" Pikachu said, lifting the empty mug up at him.  
  
Ash groaned. "You need more already?" He put down his mug and got up on  
his knees to refill it.  
  
Duplica looked at Pikachu and smiled bitter-sweetly. "You and your  
pokemon remind me so much of me and Ditto." She took a sip out of her mug  
and shook her head. "I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad  
thing." She got a sad look on her face. "He died back in the Dark Wars."  
  
Ash finished refilling Pikachu's cup and put it down before Pikachu could  
lick his finger off accidentally in his haste to have it. "Yes, I noticed  
that he wasn't with you and that you've gained ... certain powers."  
  
Duplica was silent for a moment, reminiscing. "Back then I swore I  
wouldn't get into any more world events. Just me living peacefully in my  
house of imite, and hopefully, some day, find a man to settle down with  
and marry." She crossed her legs in front of her. "Now look at me. Back  
in the action all over again."  
  
Ash sat back down to finish his chocolate. "Yeah, now that you've brought  
it up, just why are you here? Where are you going?"  
  
Duplica seemed to stare in the air blankly as if feeling something that  
was not physical. "You don't sense the disturbance in the Astral Plane?"  
She paused, considering. "No of course not, you're not part pokemon like  
I am." She looked at Pikachu who had just finished his second mug and was  
now watching them curiously. "I'm betting that your pikachu feels it  
though."  
  
"Feels what?" Ash asked, curiously.  
  
"A sense of foreboding. Incoming danger. A wrongness in the air."  
  
Ash closed his eyes. "Let me guess. The centre of that feeling is coming  
from the Cerulean City ruins, right? I feel a slight weight coming from  
there as well and is one of the reasons I didn't put that much of a fight  
when Misty forced me on her mission to investigate them."  
  
Duplica looked at him hard with her brown eyes. "Yes. The Cerulean City  
ruins exactly." She seemed to study him.  
  
Ash opened his eyes and noticed her looking at him with a serious look on  
her face. "What is it?" he asked, a puzzled look in his golden brown  
eyes.  
  
"Nothing," she said, still considering him.  
  
Ash looked away, unnerved. He skulled the last of his hot chocolate with  
one quick gulp and placed the mug on the floor of the tent. "Well,  
perhaps you can join me and Misty on our way there when we leave tomorrow  
morning." He stood up on his feet, smoothed his long black cloak down,  
and loosely secured it at the waist to keep the wind from blowing  
it around too much. "I'm going to go for a walk before I turn in for the  
night. I'll be back later. Pikachu, you keep Duplica company and guard  
our things."  
  
"Pikachu," Pikachu agreed, and saluted him with one dark paw.  
  
Ash nodded at Duplica, then covering his head with his hood, he opened  
the flaps of the tent and stepped outside into the night.  
  
Duplica was silent for a few moments more, thinking, before she picked up  
Ash's mug and absorbed it back into her hand. She looked at Pikachu.  
"Looks like it's just me and you, big fella. So what do you wanna do to  
kill some time?"  
  
Pikachu gave her a mousey grin and scampered over to Ash's backpack.  
After rummaging through it for a second he pulled out a pack of cards and  
presented them to her. "Chu!" His cobalt blue eyes shined hopefully at  
her.  
  
Duplica put her hand on her forehead and groaned. "Oh no! Not Pokemon  
cards!" Then she smiled as she took out her own collection. "Do you have  
a Ditto? I'll trade you a Pikachu for it."  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash walked among the tents ignoring the frightened looks that villagers  
and Grass Trainers gave him alike. Maybe he should have went in his  
civies, he decided, as yet another green clothed man took one look at  
him and darted behind a nearby tent, making a warding symbol at him with  
his hands.  
  
Slight steam came out of his mouth as he breathed and he noticed that it  
was getting colder. As he picked his way north to walk out in the open,  
he sensed someone following him. He turned around and just caught whoever  
it was slipping behind a tent. He smiled and shook his head.  
  
  
  
  
  
The girl scolded herself as she crouched behind the tent. He had almost  
seen her! That guy must have some kind of weird sixth sense or something,  
she thought. After all, hadn't she been the best in her reconnaissance  
class? She had made sure she stepped in time with the noises of the camp  
so that her footsteps wouldn't be heard and stayed back a respectable  
distance hadn't she?  
  
She combed her long dark brown hair back with her fingers and peeked  
around the corner of the tent. He wasn't there any more. He must have  
turned towards the forest at the north of the camp. She got up and was  
about to follow, when a deep voice startled her from behind.   
  
"I suppose I should ask why you're following me."  
  
She whipped around, her heart beating fast and noticed a shadow that  
hadn't been there before. It stepped into the light and revealed itself  
as the man dressed in the black cloak that she had been following. How  
did he get there so quickly? She thought fast. "Remember me? I'm the girl  
you saved back in the battle by taking out that Arcanine. I-I just wanted  
to thank you..."  
  
The man threw his hood back finally revealing his full features to her.  
Her heart got caught in her throat as golden-brown eyes regarded her  
over a fine featured, handsome young man's face. His longish black hair  
was ruffled by his hood and stuck out a bit on his head giving him a cute  
look. She hadn't expected him to be so young. Anyone that was that  
powerful and with that deep voice she would have expected to be older,  
not this man who only seemed to be in his early twenties or even his late  
teens.  
  
"Oh is that all," the man said, smiling at her. Her stomach turned  
flip-flops at that smile. "In that case, you're welcome. I don't think we  
got properly introduced in the battle, so ..." He held out his hand. "I'm  
Ashura. But you can call me Ash."  
  
The girl returned his smile gratefully. She took his hand and shook it,  
noting his strong, rough grip. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Laselle, but  
you can also call me Lass - but only if you want to die young." She let  
out a light laugh as she dropped her hand from his, suddenly shy. "So  
where were you going?"  
  
Ash smoothed away a strand of hair that fell down to cover his right eye  
with the fingers of his hand. "Just for a walk. Sometimes I get the  
feeling that I have to be by myself just to think. Not even with my  
pokemon with me." He noticed her sudden sad look. "Oh sorry, to remind  
you about your Bulbasaur. I've really put my foot in it haven't I?"  
  
She sniffed. "That's okay. At least you avenged it for me."  
  
"Well I'm sure you'll get another pokemon soon and train it to be very  
powerful." He turned to go, lifting the black hood over his head to cloak  
his face in shadows again. "Well I better go now."  
  
"Do you think I could walk with you?" Laselle asked hopefully.  
  
He turned around and seemed to think about it. Then he shrugged. "Sure.  
Why not?" He waved her over to his side, "C'mon young-un."  
  
Laselle made a face at him as she went over by his side before they  
began to walk off between the tents again to the north. "I bet I'm not  
that much younger than you. I'm fifteen after all."  
  
"Wow. That's mighty old," came his amused voice from next to her.  
  
"Well aren't you going to tell me?" she asked, exasperated.  
  
"Tell you what?" he asked, obviously playing dumb.  
  
"How old you are, silly!"  
  
"Oh ..." he said as if he just realised what she was fishing for. "I'm  
twenty-one." Then in a different tone of voice, "Going on one hundred, it  
seems."  
  
She sensed his sadness about something, but she didn't say anything  
realising that he needed the quiet. They walked for a while in  
companionable silence until they reached the outskirts of the camp.  
Another man noticed Ash and quickly walked away.  
  
"Why are they afraid of you?" she asked curiously. "You're on our side  
right?"  
  
His black-cloaked shoulders shrugged. "Maybe it's because they realise  
that maybe, just maybe, some of the old legends are true. The legends  
that their parents scared them with as they went to sleep."  
  
"Old legends?"  
  
Ash stopped walking and it took Laselle two steps before she realised it  
and turned to look at him. His eyes abruptly flared golden, lighting the  
shadows within his hood, and startling her. He suddenly looked very  
sinister and she couldn't help but feel a sliver of fear enter her  
throat.  
  
"The legends of the forbidden elements." Even his voice sounded sinister.  
"The Light." He paused. "And the Shadow."  
  
She took a step backwards, afraid.  
  
Then the golden light in his eyes winked out, and he laughed. "Just  
kidding!" he said taking a step forward. "Hey, argh." He tripped over a  
tent peg and fell flat on his face in front of her.  
  
Laselle burst out in laughter. "Hah! You deserved that, Ash, for  
scaring me like that."  
  
She watched enthralled as Ash lifted himself up with his hands and did a  
handstand, then flipped over forward to land on his booted feet  
gracefully.  
  
"Yes, I suppose I did," he said meekly. "But you should have seen your  
expression."  
  
"Oh, you." Still, that had been pretty convincing. Perhaps there had been  
some truth to what the other trainers were saying. Maybe he really *had*  
been once the Champion of the Pokemon League of all things. Then she  
shrugged it off as rubbish-nonsense. He seemed too nice.  
  
Then a screaming came from one of the larger tents in front of them. Ash  
turned his head, then darted off. Laselle gasped and followed as best  
she could. That guy could run like the wind, she thought, as he reached  
the tent quite a ways before her and slipped inside.  
  
When she finally caught up and dashed inside the large tent, she saw that  
this was where they kept the League prisoners. There were just under half  
a dozen of them inside and they were all tied up, back to back and  
sitting on the floor. However, one of them, an older Fire Trainer, was  
laying by himself on the floor on his back. He looked to be terribly  
beaten, bruises and cuts all over his face as well as tears on his  
clothing, indicating that his body had also not been spared any  
punishment.  
  
"What is the meaning of this?" a tall gruff man dressed in a maroon,  
muscle shirt and trousers said. And he sure was dressed appropriately as  
his chest and arms seemed to bulge with strength. On his thick fists he  
was wearing a wicked-looking pair of brass knuckles. The Fight Trainers  
must have just arrived, Laselle thought.  
  
Ash stood before him in his black cloak, but had thrown back his hood.  
"Perhaps I should ask the same of you," he said, pointing at the  
beaten-up prisoner with one hand.  
  
"Those orders came from Master Bruno himself," the Fight Trainer said. "I  
was to interrogate these League scum by any method I deemed fit to find  
out just what is happening over at the Cerulean ruins."  
  
"Any method you deemed fit? A nice way of saying torture?" Ash said in a  
low dangerous voice. "I may seem cruel to you, dealing out death and  
destruction as easy as that, but at least the men and women I fight have  
the honour of being in a battle. Torture on a captured prisoner is  
intolerable." He narrowed his eyes, and for once, Laselle was not scared  
when they began to glow golden. "I see Bruno has not changed a bit, even  
being an ex-league member."  
  
Suddenly a deep growling voice from behind them, startled her.  
  
"ASHURA! I heard you were here."  
  
Laselle turned around to see a massively muscled man, at least more than  
half a foot taller than Ash who was already quite tall at six feet, enter  
the tent. He was dressed in a maroon hooded cloak, the type Pokemon  
Master's wore, full-bodied and reaching to his ankles, but loose-fitting  
so that it could float with the wind. Just like Ash's. The only thing  
that differed from the norm was that the folds over his arms had been cut  
short close to the shoulders to show off the man's thick, corded arm  
muscles. His hood was removed, revealing brown hair worn in long spikes  
and a rugged face that could have been handsome were it not for the signs  
of strain and the perpetual look of anger on his face.  
  
Laselle stepped backwards, away from him. She had always been a little  
afraid of Bruno, the Master of Fighting.  
  
Ash frowned at him. "One reason to dislike the grape-vine I think."  
  
"Don't give me your smart-ass shit, Ash, because I still owe you one, the  
last time we fought! I challenge you to a Circle of Masters. No pokemon,  
so you can use that blasted, level infinity Pikachu, just us two. Hand to  
hand combat." He smirked, showing a white-toothed smile, and turned  
around to leave the tent. "You're just lucky that Erika convinced me that  
we have nothing to fear from you, and that we just may need you,  
otherwise you'd be dead already." He closed the flap of the tent, ripping  
it in half from his anger. "I'll be waiting for you outside."  
  
Seconds passed with the tent in silence. Then the Fight Trainer laughed  
as he studied Ash's slim, athletic physique, no match to the Master of  
Fighting's immense strength in his opinion. "Sorry, Lass, but looks like  
your new boyfriend here isn't going to be so pretty any more, come later  
tonight." Then he kneeled down and lifted his fist. "Now old man, are you  
going to tell us all you know? ... No? Well then, here's another - hey  
what are you doing?" he asked as Ash roughly pulled him up by the neck  
then lifted him high in the air, off his feet, with one hand. No mean  
feat since the Fight Trainer was taller than Ash. Even the trainer was  
surprised, his eyes wide.  
  
"I said, no more torture," Ash said calmly. Then he quickly jerked his  
right arm inwards and gave him a massive head-butt with a loud crack,  
then threw the unconscious man through the wall of the tent like excess  
garbage, with a loud rip as the green canvas tore. The body rolled about  
a dozen meters in the grass before it was stopped by a tree.   
  
The old League Trainer on the floor said softly, "I was going to tell him  
not to underestimate you. One with the forbidden power should not be  
underestimated. I don't know why I'm saying this, Shadow Master, but I  
feel I should tell you the little I know." He coughed. "Master Blaine  
said that our mission was to flush this area free of any, or most, human  
settlement and to prevent any Rebel Force from approaching the ruins of  
Cerulean City. I also heard Blaine receive orders from the League  
Master himself and that 'the day' was coming in less than a week. I don't  
know what they meant by that though."  
  
Ash frowned deeply as he listened to what he was saying. "That is dire  
news indeed, old man," he said, wiping the hand he had used to hold the  
Fight Trainer's neck with a tissue. "Thank you deeply for telling me  
this." He looked over at one of the unconscious women Fire Trainers. "And  
take care of Belle. Everything that's happened lately has been reminding  
me why I swore to keep out of Rebellion and League business, but it seems  
trouble always seems to find me when it comes looking." He looked at  
Laselle, his light brown eyes serious. "Maybe you'll want to head off to  
your tent for the night? What you'll see outside will probably just be  
more senseless violence with that jerk trying to shove his superiority  
down my throat."  
  
Laselle looked at him with wide eyes. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss  
this for the world. You're so cool!" Then she frowned. "Wait. Shadow  
Master? Forbidden elements? You mean what you were saying out there was  
*true*?" she said, aghast.  
  
He smiled unashamedly at her then blew that pesky strand of hair that  
always fell in his eyes away with an upturned lip and a gust of breath.  
"What can I say? I'm not a very good liar. Mostly."  
  
  
  
  
  
Joy excitedly ran into Erika and Misty's tent. "Mistress Erika! Mistress  
Misty! Come quick! It's an emergency!"  
  
Erika quickly stood up and summoned her green cloak over herself in a  
flash of energy. "What is it? Has someone got hurt? Are we under attack?"  
  
"No, Master Bruno and Master Ash are going to fight in a Circle of  
Masters! Hand to hand combat - no pokemon!"  
  
"Oh," Erika said. "I was sort of expecting that anyway. Silly me."  
  
Misty sighed. "Boys will be boys. Come on, let's go see Ash win."  
  
Erika looked at her as she covered her head with the hood of her cloak.  
"What do you mean? Aren't we talking about Master Bruno here? The Master  
of Fighting? Ex-member of the Elite Four? That big ridiculously  
muscle-bound, six feet-six or so guy? That Bruno?"  
  
"Yes, but I've seen Ash fight. Ash will win. That Pikachu isn't his only  
strength." Misty walked outside the tent, covering her own head with her  
hood. "Care to bet on it?"  
  
Erika followed her. "You're on!" she said confidently. "What's the  
forfeit?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Laselle looked on, breathless, as a circle of stones, about two-dozen  
feet in diameter, were placed on the grassy field next to the camp. Then   
a Grass Trainer and a Fight Trainer stepped around the circle placing  
lighted torches on each stone. The ring was part of the duel between  
Pokemon Masters. The main rule of the match was that if one were to walk  
outside that ring of stones and fire, or was thrown out, then  
that one was the loser. The combatant who was still conscious or inside  
the ring was the winner. What was extraordinary about this 'Circle of  
Masters' though, was that it wouldn't be pokemon fighting, but the  
Masters themselves. However rare, such battles were allowed in the rules.  
And Bruno had called for just such a match. A literal Match of Masters.  
  
As word got around the Rebel camp of the duel, groups of villagers and  
trainers began gathering around the edges of the circle, ready to watch  
the oncoming battle. Although there was many of them, the crowd was  
silent as they knew the ritual importance of the challenge.  
  
Inside the circle, on opposite ends, Ash and Bruno stood silently staring  
at each other, their cloaks being blown to the side by a slight wind.  
There was an air of tension to the air that was almost physical as the  
two men waited. The two of them were highlighted by a harsh glow from the  
flaming torches surrounding them, which flickered, dancing their shadows  
around. The moon's glow only added to the atmosphere of the night.  
  
Finally Mistress Erika and Misty arrived and assumed their positions  
outside the circle, one at each end with Misty on Ash's right side while  
Erika stood at Bruno's.  
  
"Pika, pika," a cute voice said interrupting the relative silence.  
  
Laselle turned her head and saw that Ash's night-black pikachu had  
arrived along with that strange woman with dark-blue hair worn loose, who  
could somehow change her shape. She also saw that she was still wearing  
that scandalous black dress that all the other girls in the camp had said  
was *too* daring. What was really weird, though, was that the woman was  
not shivering at all in the cold night air, where people's breaths would  
turn to steam as soon as they touched it, even though the dress showed so  
much skin.   
  
"Yeah I know, Pikachu, Bruno is going to be like a one-legged man in an  
ass-kicking contest," was all the woman said as she settled down to watch  
the fight.  
  
Finally, Erika and Misty raised their right arms in the air, then brought  
them down in a quick jerking movement. "Begin," they both said  
simultaneously, their voices formal and serious. "He who flees the circle  
or lies unconscious shall forfeit."   
  
Ash and Bruno both rose their arms into the sky and a glow began to  
surround each of them. In Ash's case it was a dark, blue-black glow,  
which surrounded him, distorting his features. When it cleared, Laselle  
saw that his black cloak and boots had been removed, leaving him barefoot  
and with loose-fitting, long, flowing black trousers that was worn  
underneath the mantle as well as a slight black shirt, cut short at the  
sleeves close to his shoulders, and hugging his athletic but muscular  
form. He lowered his raised, bare arms, then lifted his hands to the  
ready. She saw that he was now wearing a pair of dark, fingerless  
fighting gloves. His fine black hair which was worn in a slightly longer  
than average length was tussled by the cold wind and his eyes began to  
glow golden in the night like points of shifting burnished gold.  
  
Respectively, it was a maroon glow which surrounded Bruno's huge  
six-feet-six frame and when it cleared, it left the huge man's truly  
muscular form for all to see. He wore long maroon trousers but no shirt,  
leaving his huge smooth chest bare. His arms looked like tree-trunks,  
brown and scarred, and as thick as could be, which he lifted to the  
ready, opening and closing his huge bare hands in anticipation. He was  
the most muscular man Laselle had ever seen. But those types of bodies  
sickened her. She much preferred the athletic looking, but muscular type,  
like Ash was. Bruno was also barefoot revealing large, square feet,  
again, not at all like Ash's which looked small and even kind of cute.  
Bruno's hair did not move at all in the wind as it was in a hardened,  
spiky style, which probably used too much hair-spray, Laselle guessed.  
His eyes began to glow too, but a dark-red colour, the colour of rust.  
  
The two of them inched closer to one another so that it was now only half  
a dozen feet separating them. They slowly stepped sideways around in  
preparation, circling, eyes glowing and alert. Adjacent to each other,  
the true contrast in their sizes was obviously apparent. Ash's head only  
reached up to Bruno's chin and his body seemed only half the width of  
Bruno's ridiculously muscled torso.   
  
Then it was Bruno who struck first. It was faster than the eye could see.  
But Laselle had quicker eyes than average and she discerned it as a feint  
for the true strike, which was a blow with his right fist the size of a  
small boulder, aimed directly at Ash's middle. However, she didn't even  
see Ash move, he was so quick. One moment he was in front of Bruno, the  
next he had somehow twisted around his back and had grasped the giant  
man's shoulder with both hands. Then in an overhead swing which looked  
impossible for a person of Ash's size, he threw Bruno over on to the  
ground, face first. Then he did a backward hand-flip away and resumed  
position.  
  
Bruno flipped back on to his feet, and spat out some grass. "That was a  
good move," he acknowledged. "But it will take stronger hits than that to  
take me down."  
  
Ash turned sideways and beckoned him with his gloved hand held to the  
ready. "That was just a test to see how much you weighed, Master of  
Fighting."  
  
"Arrogant aren't we? You want to throw me out of the ring rather than  
render me unconscious." Bruno said, hopping lightly over to close in the  
distance, his head and fists moving in quick jerking movements. "I'll  
admit that's your best chance. I have never been KO'd before."  
  
"Well I don't want to chance causing you an injury," Ash said as he  
stepped lightly sideways, gracefully and smooth as if in a dance.  
  
Bruno fists began to glow a dark red colour. "Well I don't have any  
recriminations about doing so!" he shouted as he swiped at him, causing  
the energy on his hands to flare.  
  
Surprisingly, Ash blocked the powerful strike rather than dodge it.  
Immediately Bruno began to hammer at him faster, with complicated, but  
immensely powerful, hand and arm movements. But Ash blocked those too,  
almost lazily, using his forearms and elbows to parry, moving so fast  
that they were blurring as red sparks flew and crackled at each contact  
of their arms.  
  
Then Ash suddenly stopped parrying the hits and twisted inside Bruno's  
circle of offence, striking him in the stomach with an open-handed palm  
blow with his left hand. Blood flew out of Bruno's mouth at the powerful  
blow as Ash continued the sequence with a right-handed palm blow to the  
face, then a roundhouse spinning double-kick, first with the heel of left  
foot striking Bruno's feet from under him, then a rotating kick with his  
right heel catching him in the chest this time, launching the huge man  
into the air.  
  
As Bruno took to the air, spinning around in a half twist, Ash flared  
with a glow of blue-black energy for an instant, then completed the combo  
with a rising, spinning punch which hammered Bruno over a dozen feet away  
backwards and was just enough to knock him out of the Circle of Masters.  
The crowd moved as Bruno landed on the grassy ground with a loud thump,  
bounced once, then continued rolling until a small boulder stopped his  
movement.   
  
A young nurse with red hair ran over to the still body and examined him.  
"He's unconscious!" she shouted.  
  
Erika and Misty jerked their arms up and down in one quick movement. The  
circle was over.  
  
Normally there would have been a crowd cheering at the victor, but it was  
silent, the only sound being the noises of people breathing and the  
slight wind which ruffled people's clothes.  
  
"Sorry," Ash said, blowing the hair out of his eyes. "I didn't mean to  
knock him out."  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash wasn't even breathing hard when Misty walked over to him within the  
circle to ask him if he was all right.  
  
"I'm okay," he responded as he rubbed his sore arms. Then he looked at  
her and combed his fingers though his hair. "I'm sorry about this duel,  
but he challenged me and no Master can refuse the challenge."  
  
Misty smiled, looking back at the annoyed looking Erika for a brief  
moment. "That's okay, thanks to you I profited a little."  
  
He looked curious at that, but then his expression changed to utter  
seriousness. "Misty, before this senseless display of violence, I just  
acquired some information that might be important from one of the League  
Fire Trainers."  
  
"Indeed?" She looked at him with her blue eyes. "Well I'll call a  
midnight meeting as soon as Bruno regains consciousness. I was going to  
call one anyway because we need to decide what to do from here on  
tomorrow."  
  
  
  
  
  
It had just struck midnight around the large campfire when the meeting of  
Masters took place. In a four-seated circle, with the fire in the  
centre, the Masters sat, cross-legged with Ash and Misty at opposite  
ends, while on the corresponding sides, sat Erika and Bruno.  
  
"This better be good, Ashura," Bruno growled as he adjusted the ice-pack  
on his head. He also had some white bandages wrapped around his chest  
which were visible underneath his cloak. "Just because you've beaten me,  
it doesn't mean I'm going to let off on your back." However, Ash could  
sense a new feeling of respect towards him that hadn't been there before  
the fight.  
  
Ash warmed his hands over the fire. "I'm aware of that, Master Bruno," he  
said dryly. He was about to speak out his news when he sensed something.  
He looked behind himself into the trees towards the camp. "Wait," he  
cautioned. "Someone's coming."  
  
A short while later, a shadow walked into the light given off by the  
campfire. It was Duplica. "Oh, Ashy," she called, her brown eyes shining.  
"So this is where you people got off to ..."  
  
Erika frowned, her green eyes reflecting the light of the fire. "This is  
a strict meeting for Masters only."  
  
Duplica stopped by Ash's side and blinked. She waved her hand over her  
body and violet glow surrounded her black dress and skirt for a few  
moments before it blurred and extended to cover her whole form loosely  
over her body. When she was finished, she was also dressed in a long  
cloak, but this one violet in colour. "Well aren't I the Change Master?"  
Duplica asked with a wink.  
  
Bruno folded his muscled arms and studied her. His eyes glowed darkly. A  
second later, he motioned her to sit down. "She speaks the truth."  
  
Duplica stuck her tongue out at Erika, much to the Grass Master's  
annoyance, and sat down next to Ash. This time Misty frowned at her.  
  
"I felt I had better listen to what Ashy has to say too," Duplica said,  
ignoring Misty's disapproving look, as she crossed her legs and settled  
the folds of her violet cloak over them.  
  
Ash then proceeded to tell them what he had learned. "It seems the League  
is clearing away all the human population around the Cerulean ruins," he  
said. "They've probably sent squads of Trainers and pokemon to each  
settlement around that area, just like this one, to kill everyone off."  
  
Misty was shocked. "But that's inhuman. What reasons have the League got  
for doing such a thing? There's hundreds living around that area!"  
  
Bruno thought about it. "One reason is probably to keep any curious  
people away. Another may be that they need the supplies for their  
trainers and pokemon, for whatever project they may be working on over  
there."  
  
"And another may be that they just enjoy it," Erika said, shaking her  
head.  
  
Duplica looked on, thoughtful. "Go on, Ashy. I can tell you have some  
other things to say."  
  
Ash nodded. "Well aside from being ordered to do that and drive off any  
Rebel interference, my source also said that he overheard the League  
Master himself. Something about 'the day' that should be coming within a  
week or so. He didn't know what he meant by that, though."  
  
"Sounds ominous," Bruno said. "It looks like there's a time limit we're  
working with then. This 'day' thing seems like it would be a very bad  
thing to happen."  
  
"I wonder what Lord Garick has in mind, and just what the Cerulean City  
ruins have to do with this," Erika thought aloud.  
  
Ash narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Erika over the flames of the  
fire. "Gary is dead," he said flatly. "The title of League Master should  
have passed down to Lance, the Dragon Master, and second in command."  
  
Bruno, Misty and Erika looked over at him puzzled. "What do you mean?  
'Gary' is still the League Master," Erika said. "He is still very much  
alive."  
  
Ash stood up, startling Duplica who had been silently thinking. "But  
that's impossible," he growled. "I killed Gary myself. I sent him a  
one-way ticket to the Astral Plane with the point of my sword." Ash could  
distinctly remember that day. It seemed it had been filled with the blood  
that he had spilled. It was also the day he had left the League for good.  
Aside from dismembering the League Master through the middle and removing  
his limbs, he had also been forced to kill many League Trainers on his  
flight from the Palace of the Elite Four. It was not a day he liked to  
recall.  
  
Misty frowned. "If that were true, and no doubt it is, then Lord Garick  
somehow has the power to recover himself."  
  
"But only psychic pokemon have that power," Erika pointed out. "Us  
Pokemon Masters may have extraordinary powers, but that is due to a fine  
attuning with the sense of our life-born element and the bond we share  
with our pokemon. The recovery ability is an ability that is out of reach  
to us even if we were *Psychic Masters*, like that damn Sabrina, let  
alone the power of magnitude that must be needed to recover from the  
*dead*. We're talking about resurrection here. Just how is that  
possible?"  
  
Duplica suddenly spoke up, breaking her own silence. "We don't know *how*  
it's possible, just that we *know* it's possible." She looked up at Ash.  
"Ashy, please sit down before I go on."   
  
He looked at her and nodded, sitting down and crossing his legs  
underneath him before smoothing his cloak over his thighs.  
  
"Now then, like I've already told Ashy here, the reason I'm here is that  
I sensed a disturbance in yes, the Astral Plane. And surprise, the centre  
of that disturbance is at the Cerulean ruins. Now an interesting, but  
hardly known fact to note is that, at that point in the world exists one  
of the stronger links to 'the Plane of the Dead' or as it is commonly  
known as by some people, 'Hell' due to its almost perfect position to the  
north-west of the old Pokemon Tower. I'm guessing that the other two  
points that correspond to the tower, at Cinnabar Island and the Palace of  
the Elite Four, have also been deluged by League activity. Of course,  
we'd never know it since those two places are heavily under control by  
the League anyway. Heck, Lord Garick lives in the Palace of the Elite  
Four."  
  
"So the League is interested in the spirit world, somehow," Bruno stated.  
"But why is that?"  
  
"That's a thing I don't know," Duplica said, shrugging her shoulders.   
  
Misty spoke up. "It's obviously something to do with coming into contact  
with the other side. But how that would help them, your guesses would be  
as good as mine."  
  
Ash closed his eyes, feeling a sliver of fear enter his stomach for the  
first time in over five years. He opened them and stared into the  
crackling hot fire, desperately trying not to show anything outward on  
his face or eyes that might reveal he knew something. Something dreadful.  
"This is all fine and good," he said. "But we now know our top priority.  
And that is to head off to the Cerulean ruins as fast as possible and  
stop whatever the League is planning before time runs out."  
  
"What about helping the settlements that are sure to be under attack by  
the League?" Erika asked. "We can't just leave people to be murdered like  
that."  
  
Ash thought that if they didn't stop whatever it was the League Master  
was most probably planning - he still didn't *really* believe it was Gary  
- then the whole *world* would be murdered, not just the people living in  
the settlements around Cerulean. "Then we'll split up," he said. "Erika  
and Bruno, and their forces of Trainers can take the old Diglett's cave  
south of here, to end up by the ruins of Vermillian City. From there,  
they have the best position and the numbers to protect the settlements.  
Meanwhile, me, Misty and Duplica can head through east of here through  
the old haunted Mount Moon, and go directly to Cerulean. Misty because  
... well, she has me on a leash so to speak, while Duplica has some  
knowledge about the Astral Plane that I'm sure we'd need."  
  
Bruno looked at Misty and then frowned at him. "I still don't trust you,  
Ashura. You may be strong, but you do have a reputation. Damn it, you've  
even fought against us a number of times while you were still in the  
League. Here's what we'll do. I'll send a Venemoth to carry a message for  
Koga and his sister, Aya, to meet Erika at Vermillion, as well as bring  
his Poison Trainers. That means I'll be able to bring a couple of my men  
and go with you."  
  
Ash looked at him and considered. "That's fine with me, as long as your  
men don't slow us down."  
  
Erika huffed, exasperated. "You mean no one wants to go with me? Fine,  
hurt my feelings why don't you!" she said, tightly.  
  
Misty laughed at her friend. "Look at it this way, at least you'll get to  
have the time of your life kicking League butt with Koga and his sister."  
  
"True, true," Erika said, feeling better already as she cracked her  
knuckles in anticipation.  
  
"What about Brock?" Ash asked, suddenly curious about the rock trainer  
that had been his best friend in the past.  
  
Everyone fell into silence. Misty looked at him, her blue eyes suddenly  
beginning to moisten for some strange reason. "You mean you don't know  
that either?"  
  
"Know what?" He looked dumbfounded as all pairs of eyes focused on him,  
save for Duplica who didn't know either.  
  
"Brock was killed. In a battle with the League."  
  
Ash clenched his fist and looked at it hard. "Who killed him?" he  
whispered.  
  
Bruno said flatly, "It was apparently Master Garick himself. That is how  
we know he is still alive. We saw him struck down before our very eyes  
before we had to retreat." His voice cracked, showing a sign that he had  
cared for the Rock Master as well. "It was the battle of Celadon City."  
  
Misty got up and walked over to Ash to put her hand on his shoulder, but  
he did not notice. He was dead to the world. When he looked up, his eyes  
were glowing so golden that even the other Masters were afraid of him at  
that moment. "If Gary is still alive, then when I meet up with him, he  
will be worse than dead. He won't even have a spirit to return to Hell  
when I am through with that bastard."  
  
  
  
  
  
By morning, with the sun shining brightly overhead but with a cloudy sky,  
the camp had packed and Ash, Pikachu and the others had already said  
their goodbyes to Erika and the other Rebel Trainers. Laselle had given  
Ash a tearful goodbye kiss on the cheek which got him a red face and a  
dirty look from Misty. Bruno's two men had been introduced to them. One  
was Gambit, an older man, but one who had certainly not lost any strength  
with his age. He reminded Ash of that old Christmas legend, Santa Claus,  
complete with white hair and beard, but with muscles instead of fat. On  
his face he wore a pair of circular sun-glasses and covering his large  
body was a long maroon coat.   
  
The other Trainer to come with them was, strangely, a young boy who was  
not at all muscular, but was instead, slight and kind of short. He was  
wearing a maroon cap, with jeans and a maroon vest over a white shirt. In  
fact, he kind of reminded Ash of himself at that age, although Ash was  
sure he had been taller. The boy's name was Junior.  
  
Ash, with Pikachu riding inside the backpack he wore, as well as Misty,  
Duplica, Bruno and his men all stood on the grassy plains just east of  
where the camp had been. In front of them stretched out long green hills  
and grass as far as the eye could see, with old Mount Moon on the  
horizon.  
  
"Seeing as how we have all these plains free from trees and so," Misty  
said, "Let's take a more efficient method of transport." She detached  
what looked like a star-shaped black badge, with a red jewel in the  
centre, from her cloak, that Ash hadn't noticed before.  
  
Then she spun around one rotation, her blue cloak flapping around, and  
threw the badge out on the ground in front of her. "Misty chooses  
Starmos!"  
  
The 'badge' grew in size, flat across the ground, till it was about six  
feet in diameter, and when it had finished, it had formed into what  
looked like a starmie except its skin was a glossy black, aside from the  
large red jewel in its centre, and that its ten pointed limbs seemed  
razor sharp.  
  
Starmos then began to hover a foot above the grassy ground. "Let's  
surf!" Misty said as she hopped on to the star pokemon and then flew it   
over to Ash as if it were a hover board. "Come on, Ash, you can ride with   
me. Just mind the points, they're very sharp."  
  
Ash looked down at it. Starmos seemed to be the evolved form of Starmie.  
He had never seen one before. He was tempted to take out his old pokedex  
out of his pack and record it. Then he shrugged. He could do that later.  
He leapt on to it, behind Misty. But he almost lost balance when she was  
about to surf forward. She stopped and chided him. "You're supposed to  
hold on my sides," she said, "as I'm the only one who has balance here."  
  
"Pika, pika!" Pikachu also chattered at him from his backpack,  
exasperated. He had been scared of the near fall also. Ash was heavy.  
  
Ash's heart got stuck in his throat as he reluctantly grasped the sides  
of her small waist. Through her cloak, her body was still as soft and  
firm at the same time, just as in the past. Time passed since then, but  
it seems she hadn't changed much. The memories assaulted him. Then he  
forced them away. At least Misty's backpack was keeping his front out of  
contact with her back.  
  
Gambit and Junior, promptly threw out their poke-balls, a Ponyta emerging  
from each one of them in twin flashes of red light. It looked like they  
had scored some from the left-over pokemon that belonged to the Fire  
Trainers back at Pewter, Ash thought.  
  
Bruno, however, had an embarrassed look on his face. "Uh, I have nothing  
to ride. I forgot to get a pokemon that was rideable back at the camp."  
  
Duplica laughed at him. "Don't worry Bruny-baby, if you want you can  
*ride* me!"  
  
Junior laughed out loud, while Gambit hid the smile on his bearded  
face with a hand.  
  
Bruno's face turned even redder if that were possible as Duplica fell  
down on her hand and knees in front of him. Then her shape shifted into  
an elegant Rapidash, the final evolved form of the ponyta fire horse, its  
mane of fire burning brightly in the air.   
  
Ash noted her form with appreciation. He hadn't ridden a horse in a long  
time. Though he preferred to go mostly on foot, other means of transport  
were interesting once in a while.  
  
Misty noticed him looking and elbowed him in the stomach, causing him to  
expell a breath. "I can sense *you* want to ride her, but you'll just  
have to be content with *me*, Master Ashura," she hissed.  
  
"But she looks so rideable," Ash said jokingly.  
  
Meanwhile, Bruno reluctantly tried to get on the new horse's back, but  
Duplica-Rapidash danced away, making him fall flat on his face. Then she  
turned around and neighed a horse laugh at him as Bruno got up on his  
knees, his face burning red, but in annoyance this time.  
  
He feinted to the left, causing Duplica-Rapidash to dart to the right,  
but then he leaped high into the air, twisted and somehow managed to land  
successfully on her back. "Ha! Enough foolish games, Duplica, please. We  
have no time to waste."  
  
That ended the silliness and the five of them sped off across the  
grassy plains and hills towards the Mountain of Moon, Misty in the lead  
with Ash hanging on to her waist for dear life, while Bruno did likewise  
to Duplica's mane of fire. In the rear, Junior and Gambit rode, their  
Ponytas galloping along keeping up the pace easily. It had seemed that  
despite the Fire Trainers' faults, they trained their pokemon quite well.  
  
As they flew along, the wind speeding past them, Ash turned his head to  
the side and spat out a mouthful of Misty's hair. Pikachu laughed at him.  
  
  
  
  
  
By afternoon they had reached the light forest at the base of Mount Moon,  
and just in time as the fine weather had taken a turn for the worse and  
the dark grey clouds overhead had already started to trickle down some  
wet uncomfortable rain. Thankfully the cover of the forest trees   
overhead calmed the ponytas that Junior and Gambit were riding somewhat,   
as they trotted along.  
  
Ash and Misty stayed in the lead with the hoods of their cloaks thrown  
back, as they continued east, both of them hovering along slowly atop her  
star pokemon, while Bruno, still riding Duplica-Rapidash, and his men  
brought up the rear.  
  
A drop of rain managed to fall down though the cover of the trees and  
fall down on Duplica's back. It hissed, and she neighed in pain. She  
looked up at the sky, red eyes annoyed.  
  
"Don't worry, looks like we're almost at the entrance at the base of the  
mountain," Misty said, concentrating as she controlled her pokemon like a  
hover-board over the forest debris scattered along the ground.  
  
As they advanced, Ash began to sense a number of people coming from the  
south of the forest and heading directly towards them. "Ssh!" he  
whispered, tightening his grip upon Misty's waist. "People are coming ...  
and also some pokemon." He concentrated. "They seem to be having a  
battle."  
  
Bruno looked around for cover. "There." he pointed at a large stone  
boulder at the base of a grove of bushes. "Behind that. We'll see if they  
are friend or foe before getting involved. If we even choose to get  
involved that is. We have to remember that our priority is the mission,  
first and foremost."  
  
"Agreed," Misty said softly. She guided Starmos over to the boulder, with  
Ash still riding along behind her, while Duplica suddenly morphed back  
into a woman, wearing her violet Master's cloak, surprising the hell out  
of Bruno as he had still been riding her.  
  
"Mind letting go of me?" Duplica motioned to Bruno's hands, which were  
grasped on to the sides of her chest and just touching the base of her  
breasts.  
  
"Oh, sorry," Bruno said, red-faced.   
  
When they were all hiding behind the boulder, with Misty and Ash still  
hovering upon her pokemon so that they could peek over the top of the  
stone, it wasn't long before four men, dressed in clothes with the 'L' of  
the League emblem emblazoned on them, came running out of the trees,  
breathing hard. Then they suddenly stopped in the clearing to catch their  
breath.  
  
"They got two more of our men," one of them said, resting his hands on  
his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He had short blonde hair and  
though his grey clothing was roughened up, he otherwise looked like a  
typical League grunt.  
  
"Do you think we lost them?" another one asked, looking behind them into  
the forest as if searching for something. Surprisingly, he looked  
familiar to Ash and Misty who were silently watching. He had brown hair  
and was wearing a cheap, tattered-looking cloak that matched his hair in  
colour.  
  
"I hope so, otherwise they'll get us next!" the third man said. He also  
had brown hair but looked younger than the others, perhaps about  
seventeen. There was also something familiar about him.  
  
The last was a man dressed in a weird-looking samurai outfit, complete  
with black helmet and yellow fins attached to its front and dark-blue  
armour. At his belt was attached a poke-ball and a long sword in a  
sheathe, while on his feet, he wore a pair of wooden thongs. He reminded  
Ash of that boy he met more than a decade ago, when he had just started  
his journey, who had been dressed up in a similar outfit. The samurai man  
remained silent, alert, as he too watched the forest behind them.  
  
For a seemingly long moment the four of men studied the trees and bushes  
for any signs of life. Then the blonde grunt sighed in relief. "I think  
we lost them."  
  
How wrong they were.  
  
Suddenly a flash of silver blinked from the high branches of a tree and a  
knife was sticking out of the blonde grunt's shoulder. He screamed and  
fell over on to his side, clutching the hilt of the small dagger.  
  
"Prepare for annihilation!" a feminine voice shouted from up above. From  
the upper canopy of the trees a slim woman dressed all in black, with  
baggy trousers and a tight short-sleeved tank-top open at the mid-riff,  
somersaulted down into the centre of the group of men. Her head was  
covered by a ninja's tight hood, face hidden by a dark veil, only showing  
her frosty blue eyes. Through an opening at the back of her head, her  
hair was worn in a long, single red ponytail which streamed along like a  
ribbon of silk. Her athletic figure spun into a frenzy of martial arts  
moves, a spin kick knocking away the younger man, then a rising splits  
kick which caught the brown-cloaked man on the chin sending him flying  
backwards into a tree.  
  
"You bitch!" the samurai said as he unsheathed his long katana and   
charged her. But from behind him, a shadow emerged from the bushes.   
  
"And make that double!" It was another figure dressed all in black, with  
matching baggy trousers and tight shirt showing off a lightly muscled  
chest indicating this one as male. On his head, he also wore a ninja's  
hood, the only features showing were his emerald green eyes.  
  
The male ninja dived forwards in a somersault roll, then rose upwards in  
flying kick, catching the swordsman in the back and sending him colliding  
into another tree.  
  
However, the tattered brown-cloaked man sat up and recovered, shaking his  
head. He removed a poke-ball from his belt. "You are no match for the  
Farfetch'd Master! Go Farfetch'd! Sword's dance!"  
  
From the ball emerged a brown goofy-looking bird pokemon holding what  
looked like a stick of celery for a weapon. "Far!" it squawked as it  
began to flap forward and attack the ninja man with it.  
  
Then a loud cat's growl came out from behind a tree and a large  
panther-like, white cat with a red jewel in its forehead and black  
rounded ears with sharp whiskers leaped out and caught the unfortunate  
bird pokemon in its sharp teeth. "Pers-ian! Dinner!" it growled as it  
began to chew and crunch the bird pokemon in its powerful jaws.  
  
Suddenly chaos emerged as a ponyta exploded from the west, bucking  
wildly, and creating confusion in the battle. On its back rode a young,  
dark-haired girl dressed in a light-green cloak. She was screaming in  
fright, obviously having lost control of her horse.  
  
Ash recognised her. "Laselle!" he called out in alarm over the boulder.  
What was she doing here? He let go of Misty and leaped into the air over  
the stone, turning a somersault, cloak whipping around, and throwing  
Pikachu in the air as he did so. "Pikachu! Shadow Blade!" As he landed,  
Pikachu complied, shifting into the long black katana that seemed to  
absorb light. Ash caught it in one hand, spun it in one full circle,  
then continued to sprint towards the battle.  
  
"Ash!" Misty shouted, as she directed Starmos to follow, flying in  
the air after him.  
  
The younger, brown-haired man saw the black-cloaked man running at them  
with a wicked looking sword and panicked. He ripped out a poke-ball from  
his belt and threw it. "Eeverion! Antipode attack! Stop that guy!  
Please!"  
  
From the red ball emerged what looked like an Eevee, a small fox-like,  
rabbit creature, except it had flame red ears, long yellow spines across  
its back and a blue fish-fin tail. "Eev!" it growled as it shot a red and  
blue ball of ice-fire from its mouth directly at Ash.  
  
Ash leaped high into the air, but the antipode attack seemed to follow  
him, somehow having some homing properties. So in midair, using the  
shadow blade like a baseball bat, he knocked the sphere of powerful  
elemental energy away into the sky. "Pikachu, Darkness Illusion!" he  
called as he pointed the sword downward as he passed over them, at the  
Eeverion and the brown-haired young man. From the tip of the sword shot a  
black spear of shadow which streamed out in a dark mist all around its  
target.  
  
The Eeverion Trainer shouted, "I'm blind! That bastard blinded me!" as  
Ash landed with a thump and ran towards Laselle and the Ponyta who was  
being chased by the samurai man.  
  
The 'Farfetch'd Master' in the tattered brown cloak breaking out of the  
shock of the death of his pokemon at the hands of the Persian, screamed  
in anguished loss, then turned to run off towards Mount Moon.  
  
"Persian, stop him!" the woman ninja called out.  
  
"Perr!" the large cat pokemon growled, spitting out the stick of celery  
it had been using to pick its sharp teeth with, then loped quickly after  
the fleeing man on all fours.  
  
Meanwhile, the samurai had cornered Laselle atop the Ponyta against a  
grove of trees. The fire horse snorted and rose up on its hind legs as  
the swordsman approached. Then Laselle screamed as she fell off the  
horse on to the ground and lay on her side. The Ponyta shrieked at the  
surprise and jumped over the samurai's head and sprinted off into the  
forest.   
  
At the samurai's distraction, Ash slashed the air in front of him with  
his sword and a gust of knife-sharp air pressure rocketed forward,  
parting the ground in front of him like a bullet, dust and leaves flying  
to the sides. He continued to run forward as the blade of air struck a  
stony boulder nearby the samurai and it shattered, the shrapnel striking  
the man with sharp bits of hard rock.  
  
The samurai turned around, angry and bleeding in several places from the  
explosion and noticed Ash running directly at him, black katana held  
horizontally at his side, the point facing backward. The samurai lifted  
his own silver katana to the ready.  
  
"So, another who practises the art of the sword!" the samurai said in  
anticipation, his helmet gleaming damply from the light rain. "And one  
who has the look of a Pokemon Master! But you will be as a novice in  
front of a true Master! A Blade Master!"  
  
Ash didn't hesitate, his eyes gleaming golden, as he shifted his run into  
a sidestep, black cloak whipping behind him. The samurai twisted at his  
movement and struck the first blow, a powerful swing of his katana, but  
as if he were testing him. Ash countered easily, letting the blade slide  
against his and out of the way, before spinning the sword around and  
lopping off the samurai's left hand as easy as cutting thin air.  
  
The samurai screamed and fell backwards, clutching his sword unsteadily  
in his remaining hand, as Ash shifted his feet and twisted, preparing the  
final blow. A Blade Master indeed, Ash thought sarcastically. He would  
show the folly of that empty title.   
  
But the samurai ripped his poke-ball from his belt and threw it at him.  
"Pincer! Kill him!"  
  
Ash knocked the ball away with the flat of his blade and it exploded open  
in the air front of him, the brown, bipedal, insectoid creature with huge  
venom-dripping spiny horns, lunging at him as it dived out.  
  
But he was prepared and kicked the large pincer in the stomach, knocking  
the breath out of it, before slashing his katana horizontally across the  
creature's head. The huge spiny horns detached themselves from the  
pincer's head a split second later and flew off, dark blood spurting from  
the cleanly sliced stumps. The pincer vomited in pain and Ash sweeped its  
stumpy legs out from underneath it with an advancing low kick. It fell  
flat on its back and he finished it off with a thrust to the head, the  
black light-absorbing katana feeling as if it met no resistance at all,  
as it easily pierced through three feet of skull and into the hard  
ground.  
  
Ash smoothly removed his hissing blade from its forehead with one hand,  
blood splattering out, and spun back to the samurai, the folds of his  
cloak whipping around.  
  
But sensing his opportunity, the samurai had run over to Laselle and  
now stood lifting his sword over her threateningly with his one remaining  
hand. He glared at him with fierce dark eyes within his helmet. Yet, now  
they seemed more afraid of him than angry.  
  
"Stop novice! Or I will be killing this girl!" the samurai shouted,  
desperate now.  
  
Ash was wondering about whether a dark shock would kill the man before  
the man could do anything, when suddenly a thin stream of silk shot out  
from the opening in Laselle's backpack. It wrapped all around the  
samurai's ankles and he tripped over, shouting as he did so, and dropped  
his sword out in front of him. Unfortunately for him, the silver katana  
fell hilt first, and the man fell on top of it, the sharp blade piercing  
his armour and through his chest. The man gurgled a death cry and  
twitched pathetically along the ground before he lay still, blood leaking  
from his chest and mouth.  
  
Ash ran over and kicked the body away before kneeling down and picking up  
Laselle in his arms. "Are you okay?" he asked, dropping his sword on the  
floor, where it promptly changed back into a dark coloured electric  
mouse.  
  
"Pika?" Pikachu said worriedly, jagged tail twitching.  
  
"I-I think so," Laselle sniffed. Then, puzzled, she unstrapped her  
backpack and opened it up fully.  
  
"Pii!" The head of a green caterpillar pokemon emerged out from it.  
  
"A Caterpie?" Laselle said, surprised.  
  
Ash's eyes widened. If he wasn't mistaken, this was that same caterpie  
who had scared Misty stiff, and that he had failed to capture, back in  
the Viridian Forest. "It looks like you have a new pokemon, Laselle," he  
said, smiling as the caterpie began to hug Laselle's side.  
  
Then behind him, two throats cleared. Ash turned around to find the two  
ninjas in front of him. Pikachu growled.  
  
"No need for alarm," the male ninja said, his green eyes gentle within  
the slit over his black mask. "The damsel has been rescued and all is  
right with the world."  
  
The female ninja with the red hair tied in a long ponytail, smacked him  
on the back of the head with her hand. "James, you fool! While we were  
gawking at the rescue, we let two of the outlaws escape! We have to catch  
them all or we won't get paid the full amount!"  
  
"Sorry, Jessie," the male ninja said apologetically, rubbing his head.  
  
Then the white Persian came loping back. "Perrrsian ... don't worry, they  
ran into the entrance of old Haunted Mount Moon," it growled. "They're  
like two mice caught in a box in that place."  
  
They turned to go off. "Wait. Jessie, James?" He looked at the Persian.  
"And Meowth?"  
  
The two ninja's turned back and looked at him with shocked looks in their  
eyes. The woman removed her veil and the black covering on her head  
revealing a sinister-looking but familiar beauty with red hair and blue  
eyes, while the man removed his mask, uncovering a girlishly handsome  
green-eyed man with blue hair worn in a longish style on his head. The  
Persian looked at them, its feline slitted eyes narrowed in  
contemplation.  
  
"You know us?" the man and woman asked simultaneously. "Have we met  
before? You look familiar."  
  
"Ash, Laselle, you're okay!" Misty's voice came from behind them, as she  
hopped off her pokemon and ran up to stand over Ash and the young girl.  
"W-What's that?" she asked alarmed. "A-A bug! I hate bugs!" she screamed  
and turned to run back the way she came, red hair flying behind her.  
  
Ash sighed.  
  
"Perr ... I know them now," the Persian said, as it eyed Pikachu.  
"They're the brats from years ago when we were still in Team Rocket!"  
  
Bruno, Duplica and the others came up from behind, but had to dodge Misty  
as she ran past, blue cloak flapping wildly. "A surprise every second,"  
Bruno stated as he turned to watch Misty run away into the forest before  
she bumped into a tree and fell down on her back in a silly daze.  
  
  
*** End Part 4  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Darkness Illusion   
Type : Shadow  
  
A thick mist of darkness is generated which is impossible to see in or  
through. Can also cause hallucinations upon contact with eyes.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Those of you who play Street Fighter Alpha 3 may recognise Ash's combo in  
the circle of Master's as a slight variation on a coolness combo  
belonging to one Miss Karin Kanzuki ^-^.  
  
And no. Laselle, Junior and Gambit aren't made-up characters. They're  
actually plays on those annoying trainers (Lass, Junior Trainer, and  
Gambler respectively) you have to fight in the game ^-^. One of my  
pet-peeves in a fic is a lot of ANC's (Annoying New Characters) so I'm  
trying to only limit myself to only one - Valdera. Then again she's a  
baddie so she may not count ^-^. The other baddies like the Farfetch'd  
guy, the samurai and Eevie guy came from the anime. The grunt doesnt  
exist, but then he was disposed off quickly anyway so I hope you'll  
forgive me ^-^.  
  
Oh yes, Starmos, the evolved form of Starmie also doesn't exist. I don't  
like making up ANC's but I don't have any worries when it comes to  
making up pokemon ...  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	5. Rematch

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 5 - Rematch  
  
  
Dark shadows played along the narrow, rocky tunnel walls as the two  
figures walked through, booted feet making squeaking noises as they  
stepped through damp puddles. In front of them, their only light source,  
a small fox-like, rabbit pokemon using its flaming ears, chased away the  
darkness as they advanced, with the power of fear pushing them onward.  
However, the cramped nature of the tunnel and the dark in front of them  
also weighted them against going on, but the Pokemon Masters, for they  
could have only been Masters, and those damn Bounty Hunters, were no  
doubt right behind them, and their fear of them was greater than their  
fear of the dark. But this old mountain did have a reputation. There must  
be some reason why people called it the old haunted Mount Moon and  
steered clear of it whenever possible.  
  
Mikey shivered, almost imagining that the blackness was a physical being,  
and was just waiting for their light to go out so that it could happily  
devour them. "E-Eeverion, turn your Flash up a bit."  
  
"Eev!" His pokemon, thankfully, glowed a bit brighter.  
  
"Watch it, you wimp," the man in the tattered brown cloak said, from  
beside him. "Those Masters might sense the energy your pokemon is using  
up! Do you want them to catch us? I'm a Master too, but I'd be no match  
for all of them back there!"  
  
Mikey stayed silent but smirked inwardly. Master indeed. Farley was no  
Master. Except, perhaps, the Loser Master.  
  
"Ya know, pipsqueak, I think I recognised some of those Masters and even  
those Bounty Hunters. I think maybe I met them when I was a kid," Farley  
said, in suddenly confident tone. "I reckon I could take them out if I  
still had my Farfetch'd. But since that cat played that sneaky trick, I  
don't have him no more."  
  
"Whatever you say," Mikey agreed, not meaning a word he said. The tunnel  
was getting narrower up ahead. He hoped there weren't any spiders. He  
hated spiders as well as the dark. "Eeverion, if you see any spider webs,  
Ember em away for me, okay?"  
  
"Eev!"  
  
Soon the tunnel was so narrow, they had to twist sideways to fit through  
it.  
  
"Let me go first!" Farley said, eyeing Mikey's pokemon in front of them  
which was just beginning to walk through, as if it were a lifeline. It  
seemed he was scared too and wanted the protection that Eeverion could  
give him.  
  
"Uh, okay," Mikey said. He may have hated Farley but the man was still  
bigger and older than him. And he had more authority in the League than  
he did.  
  
"Good," Farley said quickly. He squeezed past Mikey and stepped sideways  
into the tunnel. "You'll be a good League Trainer if you bend to your  
superior officers - argh!" he suddenly screamed as a massive flock of  
zubats flew out through the tunnel and all around him.  
  
The black bats screeched so loud that they were hurting their ears as  
they flapped and scratched and even bit, as they flew past in a tight  
cloud. Mikey covered his face and bent over until they had passed.  
  
"Damn!" Farley was saying. "Where did those come from?"  
  
And then there was darkness. A tight feeling rose up in Mikey's chest and  
stomach and he could hardly breathe as the blackness descended. It felt  
just like when he thought that Master, or whoever he was, the man in the  
cloak as dark as night, had blinded him with that weird attack.  
"Eeverion? Why did you stop lighting our way?" he asked, his throat  
beginning to close up in fear. "Use Flash now!"  
  
"Yeah! Use Flash now!" Farley also sounded panicked. It seemed he didn't  
like the dark either.  
  
Something in front of them hissed. It was a low, dreadful sound.  
"SSSSSSSSSS..."  
  
"What the HELL was that?" Farley screamed, panic beginning to take over.  
  
"I-I don't know," Mikey said. He couldn't breathe. He was so scared.  
"Eeverion? Eeverion! Where are you? Flash ... P-Please!"  
  
"SSSSSSSSSS..."  
  
"ARGHHHHH!" Farley screamed, a scream filled with complete pain and   
anguish. "AAAAHGHAGHAGH!"   
  
Mikey could hear his companion in front of him shaking and vibrating.  
"W-What's happening? Farley!!!" Then all of a sudden, he too was  
screaming as an intense burning pain filled his entire being.  
  
A minute later, the screaming cut off. The dark tunnel was silent.  
  
  
  
  
  
Before them stood the incredibly high peaks of Mount Moon, the huge  
mountain reaching towards the heavens. Overhead, the late afternoon sky  
was a murky grey and rain still drizzled, slowly falling from the clouds.  
The group stood at the entrance to the mountain's underground tunnels. It  
seemed like an ordinary cave opening, dark and gloomy, save for two signs  
which were posted up front. They both read, "Danger. No admittance."   
  
Ash rubbed his chin and stared at it. The place gave him memories.   
Most of them bad. At his side, stood Misty, who was also staring at the   
entrance with a worried look on her pretty face. At her feet, her star   
pokemon hovered. Behind them were the old 'Team Rocket', Jessie and James   
with Persian, as well as Duplica in her violet cloak, Laselle with her   
new caterpie riding on her backpack, Bruno the Master of Fighting, and   
finally his two men, Junior and Gambit, who brought up the rear with   
their two ponytas, their fire manes flickering. The horses snorted as  
they stood under cover of some trees, wanting to get in out of the slowly  
falling rain.  
  
"Do I have to go in?" Laselle was saying, from behind, her girlish voice  
low and worried.  
  
"Well now that you stowed away with us, and we can't take you back, I  
guess you will have to," Bruno's deep voice said firmly.  
  
"Yeah, so stop being such a scaredy-cat," a boy's voice said. It was  
Junior, one of Bruno's men.  
  
Persian, Jessie and James's large, white, panther-like pokemon growled.  
"Hey," he hissed. "I resent that remark."  
  
"Oh," Junior said. "Sorry."  
  
"I don't even know why you people are following us," Jessie said, who had  
replaced the black veil on her face, covering it save for her sinister  
blue eyes. "If you're looking to capture those outlaws for yourself, well  
you can just shove off! We saw them first."  
  
"Yeah," James agreed, who had also replaced his ninja's mask, his  
forest-green eyes shining brightly. "Besides, we need the money to buy  
new clothes. We have a big party to go to tonight!"  
  
Jessie whomped him on the head. "You didn't have to tell them that,  
James! Now our evil image is ruined!"  
  
Duplica smirked, tossing her dark-blue hair on her shoulders. "Ha! As if  
you two had an image in the first place."  
  
"Oh shut up!" Jessie said. "I remember you. It seems *you* liked our  
image enough because you even dressed up like us in the past!" she said,  
folding her arms.  
  
"Don't you even know when you're being made fun of?" Duplica countered.  
"And we're not after your crummy outlaws!"  
  
"Will you stop arguing?" Ash asked, annoyed now, as he threw the cowl of  
his cloak back and combed the fingers of his right hand through his hair.  
  
"Pikachu!" Pikachu, riding on Ash's backpack, agreed, dark sparks  
emitting from his cheeks. When Jessie and James saw that, they fell  
silent. They knew what that meant.  
  
"We're wasting valuable time here," Misty said as she also removed her  
hood. "Starmos, return." Her star pokemon shrunk back into a little black  
badge, which she caught and pinned back on her blue cloak.  
  
Bruno's men recalled their ponytas back into their poke-balls with a thin  
beam of red light, then shrunk them and attached them to their belts.  
  
"Let's go," Ash said, smoothing his black cloak. "Pikachu, use Flash to  
light the way."  
  
"Pika," Pikachu agreed.  
  
The group then entered the cave single-file, with Ash and Pikachu  
leading, Misty second, then Duplica with Laselle behind her. Laselle  
wanted to go third, but Misty wasn't having any of that because of the  
caterpie riding in her bag. Then finally, Bruno and his men, while   
Jessie, James and Persian brought up the rear.  
  
The rocky tunnel was dark and getting darker by the second as they began  
to descend.  
  
Ash had a bad feeling about this.  
  
  
  
  
  
"The League Master has arrived."  
  
The tall, muscular man dressed in the brown hooded cloak said nothing as  
he looked out of the window of the massive, black stone tower. Below  
them, the procession of men escorting the dark carriage pulled along by  
horses of flame, looked as if they were ants, they were so high up. From  
up here, the large ruins and debris of Cerulean City, that used to stand  
on this very ground, looked like so much small stones and pebbles.  
  
"I see that, Lance," the man acknowledged. "Is all in preparation for the  
coming?"  
  
"Affirmative," Lance said, as he walked fully into the room, his black  
boots tapping on the stone floor from underneath his long, dark blue  
cloak. "We also have several squads of Trainers patrolling the area along  
with some of the lesser Masters leading them. We shall not be disturbed."  
  
The brown-cloaked man smirked from the shadows of his hood. "No need to  
worry about that. Let them come. I dare them."  
  
Lance looked at him curiously. "So it's true that Ashura has resurfaced.  
Are you sure it's wise that we just let him march on in here? Don't  
underestimate his power. He was after all, the League Champion, even when  
he was just a kid." He folded his arms. "And he was also the main person  
responsible for ending the Dark Pokemon Wars. Power like that is  
unimaginable. Even I, with the immense power of dragons, would hesitate  
to challenge him."  
  
"Oh, I am aware of all that. I know him better than anyone, save perhaps,  
Mistaria." He was silent at that for a few moments. "Has Valdera been  
located yet?"  
  
"No, she has disappeared. Again." Lance frowned. "You know how unreliable  
she is."  
  
The brown-cloaked man narrowed his dark eyes. "That slut. As soon as that  
bastard reappeared, she's been like a bitch in heat. If it wasn't for her  
powers I would have taken her myself."  
  
"Wouldn't we all." Lance grinned. "But I wouldn't challenge her either,  
her being Ashura's broad and all. Or used to be. Those two used to be  
flip sides of a coin."  
  
"That's why we have to keep an eye on her. No one really knows what her  
real objective is. The only thing that's clear is that she wants to rule  
the world or something stupid like that. That's why she uses us, and we  
use her." He watched as the procession far below them finally reached the  
front gates of the tower. "Come, let's greet the League Master. It's  
almost time."  
  
The two cloaked men walked out of the room, the only sound being the  
soft tapping of leather boots against the stone floor, then the loud  
slamming of the double wooden doors of the chamber.  
  
  
  
  
  
"It's getting darker in here," Duplica stated as she looked around within  
the tight rocky tunnel.  
  
Ash noticed it too even though he had no problems seeing in the dark.  
They must be pretty deep into the earth by now, he thought. From what he  
remembered, the last time he took this trip, they were about a third into  
the caverns. "Pikachu, turn up the Flash a bit." Even though he and  
Pikachu could see well enough, the others probably couldn't.  
  
"Chu," his pokemon said, as he stood on Ash's shoulder, pointed ears  
twitching. His black fur let out a brighter, golden light. More of the  
tunnel was suddenly visible around them. Ahead, Ash saw that the grey  
walls of the tunnel were getting slightly narrower as it was revealed to  
the front.  
  
After a few more minutes of walking, Ash became aware of a disgusting  
stench which invaded his senses. His eyes narrowed, but he ignored it.   
  
It was moments later when Laselle suddenly clapped her hand over  
her mouth. "Ewww, gross!" she said from behind them, as she tightened her  
light-green forest cloak around her shoulders. "What's that smell?"  
  
"Something's rotten down here," Misty voiced, her hand also coming up to  
cover her pert nose and mouth.  
  
"Smells like a human body," Bruno said softly from way in the back with  
Jessie, James and Persian.  
  
"How do you know?" Jessie asked, wrinkling her nose from within her mask.  
"Just smells like rotten eggs and food to me."  
  
"Here," James said as he handed her a small bottle of perfume.   
  
Jessie opened it and liberally applied it to her veil. "Ah, that's much  
better, James. Perhaps you are good for something other than - you know."  
She let out a wicked smile which was obvious underneath the mask.  
  
James blushed crimson, the narrow strip of his face visible clearly red  
even though the tunnel was so dark.  
  
"Trust me, after so many wars, you don't easily forget the smell," Bruno  
said tightly, their word-play going completely over his head.  
  
And then they saw it. Where the tunnel suddenly grew the narrowest it had  
been so far, were two human bodies. Standing up, wedged sideways in the  
opening of the tunnel was that Farfetch'd man. His body seemed to have  
been dissolved by some sort of acid. His flesh was hopelessly melted in  
most places and hanging off the bones, brown cloak with many holes eaten  
in it. His face held a terrified look, eyes wide open, frozen in death.  
It was pale, with the white bone of his skull showing through his cheeks,  
lips melted off showing teeth in a horrible parody of a grin.  
  
Meanwhile lying on the floor, his body rolled up in a ball, was the  
young-looking Eeverion Trainer. His body also seemed to be partly  
dissolved by something, ribs poking out in the holes in his clothing,  
clear fluid leaking out. Thankfully, the dead boy had hidden his face  
within his hands as he died in his death's pose.  
  
What was strange about both bodies, though, was that they both looked to  
be in the advanced stage of rigor mortis. But that seemed to be  
impossible since the bodies couldn't have been dead all *that* long.  
  
Everyone stood in horrified silence as they looked at them. It was  
terrible. Misty had a grave look on her face, while Laselle tightly  
clutched on to Duplica's cloak. Bruno and his men had neutral expressions  
on their faces, trying not to show anything outward, while Jessie, James  
and the Persian just looked shocked as they stepped forward and studied  
the bodies.  
  
"I think it would've been better if they had been caught outside and tied  
up like the other guy," Jessie said softly.  
  
Ash's eyes began to glow golden as he studied the poor men. No one  
deserved this kind of fate. And he had a good idea about what the thing  
was that had done this. How could they have let it roam free around this  
mountain? Were they using it as one of their 'Master Pokemon?' It was  
psychotic to let a being like that loose. Whoever was responsible for  
this would pay.  
  
There was a scampering of tiny feet behind the body wedged in the tight  
tunnel.  
  
"I hear something," Misty said.  
  
Laselle gasped.  
  
Ash got ready.  
  
A small form darted out from between the dead man's legs. It was the  
Eeverion.  
  
"Eev!" it squeaked, its eyes glowing red.  
  
"Oh, it's just the boy's pokemon," Misty stated in a relieved voice and  
began to step forward.  
  
Ash held her back with a hand on her cloak. She looked at him, her aqua  
eyes puzzled. "It's not what it seems."  
  
The Eeverion looked at them malevolently, its red eyes flashing. Then it  
shouted, "VEE!" and suddenly, dozens of thick black tentacles sprouted  
out from its body and began to shoot towards them.  
  
"Pikachu, Electric Shield!" Ash shouted quickly.  
  
"Pika!"   
  
A blue-black electric force field appeared just in time, stopping the  
tentacles from reaching them. The barrier crackled as the long, slimy  
appendages beat against it from the other side.  
  
"There's something behind us!" Gambit, the other of Bruno's men suddenly  
shouted, panicked.  
  
Laselle screamed and Duplica gasped.  
  
Ash turned around and saw what could only be described as a black mist  
behind them, tendrils of it drifting slowly towards them. It had  
completely engulfed the tunnel, blocking the way they came. It seemed to  
be emitting a low sound. A hiss.  
  
"MiSSSSSSSSSSS ..."  
  
Ash's heart got caught in his throat. He was right. "Shit!" he shouted.  
"It's here! Pikachu, fry that thing!" He pointed at the Eeverion that was  
no longer an Eeverion. "Thunder Burn!"  
  
"PIKA!"  
  
Pikachu's blue eyes glowed and the electric field turned red and burst  
into flames as he sent it forward into the changed pokemon. There was a  
small explosion and then it was clear.  
  
"C'mon, we've got to get out of here or we're all dead!" Ash said,  
grabbing on to Misty's hand. "Everyone, through the tunnel!" he said, as  
he summoned black energy to cover his other hand, which he used to pull  
out the dead body stuck in the stony gap. "Don't touch the bodies or  
you'll be infected!"  
  
He turned sideways and went through the tunnel first, with Misty's hand  
tightly clutched in his grip and Pikachu, grasping his shoulder with his  
paws. They inched along as fast as they could.  
  
Behind them, Duplica followed with Laselle's hand in her grip. "Ewww,"  
Duplica said looking at the decomposing body as she passed. "Gladly!"  
  
Next, Jessie, James and Persian followed. "Perrr ..." Persian growled.  
"Hurry up you guys! I don't want to end up a puddle of soup!"  
  
"I'm hurrying as fast as I can!" Jessie said as she moved sideways  
through the narrow opening.  
  
"Have you been gaining weight?" James asked, panicking.  
  
"What? How dare you?" Jessie whomped him on the head. Soon, however, all  
of the former members of Team Rocket had gone inside, following the rest.  
  
Then Junior slipped in, turning his maroon cap backwards as he did so.  
"Let's go, Master Bruno, Gambit! That mist is almost here!" he shouted,  
fearfully eyeing the sheer embodiment of blackness that had almost  
reached them. Its tendrils seemed to beckon at them.  
  
Gambit looked at the tight, stony opening. "I'll never fit through  
that!" he said in his gruff voice.  
  
"You must!" Bruno said, eyes wide as he glanced at the mist. It was   
almost there. "Come, I'll go last!"  
  
"No!" Gambit shouted as he powerfully picked up Bruno's body and threw  
him in the opening. "You must live for the mission! I'll buy you guys  
some time!"  
  
"No!" Bruno shouted, as he turned to look back.  
  
"Go Machoke!" Gambit said, as he threw a poke-ball and used his thick  
body to block the opening. "I'm not scared of you ... YeARGHHHH!"  
  
And then Bruno could not see anything as the entrance to the tunnel grew  
black. "Gambit! No!" he shouted, sorrowfully, a hand outstretched in  
plea. He closed his eyes, tears escaping. "Gambit ..." he whispered. When  
he opened them, he saw that the black mist had started to enter the  
narrow tunnel. Feeling fear choke his throat, he began to hurry up after  
the rest of them.  
  
  
  
  
  
Finally the narrow tunnel opened up wider into a larger passageway. Ash  
slipped out, still holding Misty's hand in his tight grip with Pikachu  
riding on his shoulder, and stepped to the side. "Hurry people!"  
he said impatiently. "Out, out, out!"  
  
First Duplica came out with Laselle, followed by Jessie, James and  
Persian. Finally came Junior, with his maroon cap worn backwards on his  
head. Ash looked twice at that. Junior really looked like him when he was  
younger. Although, again, he was sure he had been taller.  
  
A moment later, Bruno slipped out. He had a fierce expression on his  
rugged face. "What the HELL was that, Ashura?" he shouted, running his  
thick fingers through his spiky brown hair. "That *thing* got Gambit!"  
  
"Out of the way, Bruno!" Ash said. "I'll explain later! You guys keep  
running and take the east tunnels. I'll try to slow this thing down."  
  
They needed no second order, and all began to run, leaving Ash and Misty  
behind. Duplica's form blurred into a charmander, her small lizard-like  
form leaping on to Laselle's shoulder. Her body lit up as she used Flash  
and lit the way for them.  
  
The hissing came nearer, almost at the mouth of the narrow tunnel now.  
Ash turned his head to find that Misty was still there, her blue eyes  
concentrating on the passageway. "Well? Aren't you going to go now?"  
  
Misty pointedly looked down at their joined hands. Ash was still holding  
tightly on to her right hand with his left. "I couldn't go even if I   
wanted to, Ash," she said dryly. "You're grip is so tight it's almost   
hurting my hand."  
  
Ash looked down and blushed. He immediately let go. "Oh, heh, sorry."  
  
"SSSSSSSSSSS ..."  
  
Ash immediately turned back to the small tunnel exit with a flap of his  
cloak. "Go on, Misty! This is serious here! It's not child's play any  
more. I don't think I can kill this thing! Only slow it down so you guys  
can escape."  
  
"Chu ..." Pikachu agreed, his eyes riveted on the narrow opening as well,  
as he clutched on to Ash's right shoulder.  
  
Misty ran up and grabbed on to his side. "No way! I'm staying with you!"  
Her blue eyes were fierce.  
  
Ash looked into them and felt his stomach tighten up. He turned back to  
the black mist which was just beginning to enter the larger tunnel that  
they were in. "Okay, I'm going to try something that you might be able to  
help me with."  
  
"Okay, tell me what to do," Misty said, her eyes beginning to glow a  
bright ice-blue, lighting up the shadows around her face.  
  
"Hold my hand." They held hands like before and held on to each other  
tightly. "Now feel your elemental power coursing within you, as if you  
were going to release it into an attack. But don't let it out, keep it  
bottled within you."  
  
Misty's whole body began to glow blue. So much so that Pikachu's Flash  
ability was no longer lighting up the tunnel by itself. Her long red hair  
began to rise in the air as if a breeze were blowing it back. When Ash  
saw that she was sufficiently powered up, he began to access his innate  
ability to harness shadow as well. His body began to glow darkly to add  
to her strength and his eyes lit up golden.  
  
"Pikachu, add your power to ours," he instructed. His pokemon began to  
harness its power as well and began feeding it to them. "Now, Misty,  
Pikachu, release your powers into me ... NOW!"  
  
When the powerful elemental energies streamed into him, he lifted Misty's  
arm up, along with his own. "SHADOW REPEL!" he shouted, desperately  
directing the immense power directly into the evil black mist in front of  
them. It shot forth in a bright, coursing beam of elemental energy,  
striking with the sound of an explosion. Abruptly the mist seemed to  
scream and fall backward, dark-blue sparks flying at the point of  
contact. The earth began to shake as if an earthquake had begun, dirt  
from the roof beginning to rain down over everyone's head. A fierce wind  
began to blow, creating a sand-storm. Ash, Misty and Pikachu stepped  
backwards, shielding their eyes.  
  
"Now let's run!" Ash shouted, turning around and beginning to move,  
still holding Misty's hand. "That will hold it for a while which should  
give us a bit of time!"  
  
They ran east down the tunnel, cloaks flapping, the wind deafening behind   
them, and the scream of the dreadful mist rose up again, louder, as it  
again began to follow.  
  
When the tunnel again grew slightly narrower, Ash let go of Misty's  
Hand and stopped, his boots skidding on the stone floor. Misty stopped  
too.  
  
"What are you doing?" she shouted, over the noise of the wind.  
  
"I'm going to block this tunnel off!" Ash shouted back as he shielded  
his eyes with one hand, while he lifted Pikachu off his shoulder with the  
other. "Pikachu, Shadow Blade!" he shouted, throwing him into the air.  
There was a crack of thunder as the pokemon shifted into blade form. Ash  
then caught it and jumped into the air. He grunted as he struck the roof  
of the tunnel with a powerful swing, flipped once, then landed, in a  
crouch on the ground. Immediately there was a loud rumble and a crash as  
massive rocks and boulders fell down, blocking the passageway. As soon as  
the tunnel was blocked off from behind them, the wind died down, and the  
air was silent, save for the heavy breathing of Ash and Misty.  
  
Ash sighed and lifted himself from his crouch using the gleaming black  
blade as a crutch. "This should buy us a lot more time," he said, still  
breathing hard. "Missingno can't pass through stone, so it will have to  
find out another passageway to get to us."  
  
Misty had bent over, her hands over her knees as she supported herself,  
her long red hair falling around her shoulders. "Missingno? Is that its  
name?" she asked softly.  
  
"Yes," Ash said. "It seems to have been left over from the Dark Pokemon  
Wars."  
  
Misty looked up, her blue eyes shocked. "But that's impossible!"  
  
Ash closed his eyes. "It's possible alright."  
  
And then, suddenly, a flash of light opened up in the ground beneath his  
feet, and a ghostly hand emerged from the stone to grab Ash's ankle.  
  
Misty screamed as Ash seemed to get sucked into the ground along with  
his sword.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Char!" Duplica-Charmander squeaked, as she sat on Laselle's shoulder,  
her red lizard body lighting up the way in front of them. "Turn right, no  
left!"  
  
"But the right way looks like it goes east more!" Laselle said as she ran  
with the others behind her.  
  
"You're right! Turn right! Charman - argh! It's really hard for me to  
talk properly while in a pokemon's form," Duplica-Charmander complained,  
as Laselle decided to take the passageway on the right.  
  
"Perrr, I can't believe you guys didn't bring a map!" Persian growled as  
he ran alongside Jessie and James, leaping agilely over rocks and  
other cave debris.  
  
"Well, Master Ash was supposed to navigate!" Junior said as he followed,  
holding on to the front of his hat tightly with one hand.   
  
Behind him, and bringing up the rear was Bruno who stayed silent. He was  
still in shock over the loss of his man.  
  
And then, suddenly the earth shook, and dust and rocks began to fall on  
their heads from the roof.  
  
James screamed. "We're going to get buried alive!"  
  
"Will you stop that, James, you're acting like a girl!" Jessie shouted  
over the noise of the rocks falling and Jame's high-pitched scream.  
  
"Well, it's what I do best!"  
  
And then the ground was shaking too much for them to continue running.  
Laselle stopped and held her palm on the wall to steady herself, while  
Jessie, James and Junior did the same. Persian lay on the ground, white  
paws covering his head.  
  
A few minutes later, it seemed the earthquake had stopped. Dust was  
flying everywhere in the air, making it doubly hard to see from the  
tunnel's darkness.  
  
"Phew!" James sighed, removing his mask to make it easier to breathe.  
"Thank God!"  
  
Then directly behind him a pile of boulders and dust fell, blocking off  
the passageway they had run from. James screamed again and didn't stop  
until Jessie smacked him on the head.  
  
"Thanks, I needed that," James said, rubbing his head.  
  
Bruno stood up and shook his maroon cloak free of dust and rocks. "Is  
everyone okay?"  
  
"I'm okay," Laselle said, kneeling, and shaking her head to throw the  
dust off from her long black hair.  
  
"Char!" Duplica-Chamander squeaked.  
  
"Perrr-sian," Persian said.  
  
There was only one person who didn't answer. "Junior?" Bruno called.  
"Junior!"  
  
Laselle looked around. "There!" she said, pointing at a limp form lying  
on the ground.  
  
"Junior!" Bruno shouted, running over. There were rocks and other debris  
covering him. He lifted them off easily with his powerful arms, and then  
raised him up slightly to get a better look at him. There was a large  
bump on his forehead, and the beginnings of a dark bruise that would soon  
turn into a black eye. He was unconscious. "It looks like he was struck  
in the head," Bruno stated. "I'll carry him the rest of the way out." He  
lifted up the boy's still form and slung him over his massive shoulder.  
  
Jessie was looking at the blocked off passageway. "What are we going to  
do? Our navigator and his girlfriend are stuck back there!"  
  
Laselle frowned at that while Bruno turned around to walk forward with  
Junior slung on his shoulder. "It looks like we're separated then." He  
looked around the floor of the tunnel, searching for something. Then his  
dark brown eyes brightened as he spotted whatever it was that he was  
looking for. He bent over and picked up a long wooden stick, then used  
his other hand to rip off a long strip of his cloak, which regenerated as  
soon as he ripped it away.  
  
"Here," he said, handing the stick and cloth to Laselle. "Tie this to the  
stick and have Duplica light it. Then once that's done, we'll have a  
torch. Then Duplica can change into a Zubat and she can use her radar  
ability to get us the hell out of this hell-hole."  
  
"Char!" Duplica-Charmander exclaimed, as Laselle did just that. "That was  
clever. Perhaps I was wrong about you."  
  
Bruno waved the air away from his sudden hot face. "It's nothing. Anyone  
who's been through the experiences I have is sure to have learnt a few  
survival tricks."  
  
"What about Ash and Misty?" Laselle said, looking back worriedly at the  
blocked tunnel.  
  
"Don't worry about them," Bruno said confidently. "Those two are probably  
the best Pokemon Masters I've seen in a long time. And since Ash said he  
knew these tunnels from his journey as a kid, I'm sure they won't have  
any trouble finding another way out."  
  
What was left unsaid, though, was whether Ash and Misty had even survived  
from the killer mist in the first place. But they all hoped they pulled  
through in their hearts. Even Jessie, James and Persian.  
  
Soon, with Laselle holding their new torch, with Duplica-Zubat flying in  
the lead, Bruno carrying Junior, and 'Team Rocket' coming up last, they  
forged on ahead through the dark tunnels of old haunted Mount Moon.  
  
  
  
  
  
Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory.  
  
Ash, sixteen years of age, knelt on the grassy floor of the forest before  
the girl he loved. Her red hair was tied in a long ponytail down her  
back, with wispy bangs slightly covering her beautiful blue eyes cutely  
as she looked at him, breathless with anticipation. For once she was  
actually dressed in something fashionable, a sexy red tank-top, with a  
full-length blue skirt, which encased her long, slim and beautiful legs.  
Her small, arched feet were bare, toes twitching on the green grass, and  
looked infinitely kissable. The moment was perfect. The sun was shining.  
The crystal clear, blue lake next to them was calm. A cool, refreshing  
wind was blowing.   
  
Too perfect to pass up.  
  
Ash looked into her eyes, his heart in his stomach and fluttering around  
like a butterfly. He took out a small jewel case. "Misty," he choked, and  
swallowed. "I-I know we're kind of young ... and you know ... but it's  
just that, you know ..." He paused again, tongue feeling as if it had  
been tied up. "Oh heck, wanna get married?" He quickly took out the ring  
from its box. Set in it was a perfect blue diamond which matched Misty's  
eyes completely.  
  
A tilting of her red lips. It was a smile. Of infinite happiness. "Y-You  
mean elope?" her low throaty voice whispered, as if she too had trouble  
saying the words she wished to say.  
  
Ash stood up, scratching the back of his head. "Well if you don't wanna,  
I mean like since we're best friends already, I think we should ..."  
  
She looked up at him. "Of course I will!"  
  
And then they were hugging each other tightly, their lips interlocked in  
a deep passionate kiss of joining. The joining of two kindred spirits  
that would finally become official.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash picked up his pokemon belt and strapped it on with a loud click. He  
lifted his thin brown, forest cloak - the one that his mom had given him  
back when he won his last League battle and became a Pokemon Master - and  
slipped it on over his clothes. She said it made him look mysterious and  
handsome. Ash didn't care as long as it was warm. And that it had come  
from his mother herself. He left his trusty old red Pokemon League cap  
behind, though. It was a bit dirty and he hadn't got around to washing it  
yet.  
  
"So you're going then?" Misty said. Her voice was frosty. With contempt?  
For the past few days she seemed to act coldly towards him. He didn't   
know what he had done wrong. But lately she had been picking fights for   
it seemed like no reason.  
  
"Of course I'm going," Ash said tightly. "It's my duty as a Pokemon  
Master to come when the League calls us. I think it's a war of some  
kind. But I don't know what it's about, or who we're in war *with*.  
That's why I'm off to Indigo Plateau now. To find out what's happened."  
  
"Sure," Misty said blandly, as if she didn't believe him. "You come  
calling when the *League* calls you, but you never do the same for me."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Ash said, confused. "I don't get it. What's  
come over you?"  
  
Misty glared at him, her blue eyes as cold as glaciers, as if he *should*  
know what she was talking about. But she stayed silent.  
  
Ash shrugged. He figured it was probably one of her moods.  
  
"If you walk out that door, don't expect me to be here waiting for you."  
  
"You're being ridiculous," Ash said tightly. "I'm only going to be gone  
for one night since I'm taking the new teleportation device that Bill  
finally perfected."  
  
She turned her head, her red hair swinging. She began to talk as if he  
weren't there. "I always wanted to finish my training while I was on  
Ash's stupid journey, maybe I'll go and do that when he leaves."  
  
"Look, when I come back, we'll talk about it okay? I know you want to  
finish your training. Maybe when I get back, we'll go together. We still  
haven't finished discovering all the pokemon out there." He smiled at  
her. "We can make it our honeymoon after we get married!"  
  
She folded her arms and still refused to talk about it.  
  
Ash sighed, defeated. "Like I said, we'll discuss this when I get back.  
Pikachu's waiting outside." Yeah, he figured maybe it was just a tantrum.  
They had had many fights in the past after all, and it seemed like they  
both even enjoyed the fights. It was part of what made a relationship  
with her so exciting.  
  
However, when he returned the next day, to the small cabin house they had  
built in the forest north-west of Fuchsia, he found it empty.  
  
Misty was gone.  
  
  
  
  
  
As Ash slowly rose to consciousness he could feel soft, feminine lips  
touching his own. He groaned, "Misty ..."  
  
A gasp of outrage was loud in his ear, and suddenly it seemed as if he   
was floating in the air. Then he abruptly felt pain as his back   
connected against something hard. Ash came fully awake at the impact,   
and opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. The air seemed so hot. Where   
was he?  
  
He sat up against the rocky wall and threaded the fingers of his right  
hand through his black hair. It seemed as if someone had thrown him  
into it as there was a large crater in the stone that he was leaning on.  
He got on his knees, and dusted the dust and rocks off his black  
cloak. Looking all around, he seemed to be in a very large underground  
cavern, circular in shape. In the centre of the cavern there was a large  
pit with red lava, hissing and spitting. The red glow of the molten magma  
reflected all around the rocky and stone walls making the whole  
underground cavern seem red and menacing.  
  
He finally noticed a white-cloaked figure all the way on the opposite end  
of the crater, at least fifty feet away, standing on a thin ledge. There  
was a pure white pikachu sitting on its shoulder, its eyes glowing green  
as it stared at him. Within the shadows created by the white hood  
covering the figure's head, ice-cold, blue eyes gleamed.  
  
"Valdera," Ash acknowledged, as he placed a hand on the rocky ledge he  
was kneeling on and stood up with a groan. He immediately searched for  
Pikachu with his senses. There, he thought, sensing his pokemon to his  
right. He turned his head slightly, and saw the black electric mouse  
lying on one of the far ledges. He was unconscious.  
  
"You still love her," Valdera's throaty voice accused, carrying perfectly  
to him despite their distance.  
  
"Love who?"  
  
"My sister. Mistaria." Her voice was beginning to sound angry. Ash began  
to worry. There was no telling what Valdera would do when she got angry.  
"You called out her name as you slept."  
  
"No, I didn't."  
  
She laughed, her voice so much like Misty's now that he thought about it.   
It was some sort of miricle that he hadn't realised that Valdera was so   
much like Misty, they *had* to be related somehow. Self-deception, Ash   
mused. How ironic.  
  
"Always the joker, Ashura," she said. "Oh, how I've missed you." She  
lifted up a hand, encased in the sleeves of the white cloak, and beckoned  
him. "My offer still stands. Come back with me to the League, and we can  
rule the world together! I'm sure I can persuade the Master to let you  
off, despite what you did to him. You still hold equal title to the most  
powerful Pokemon Master in the world." She let out another light laugh.  
"The other being me of course."  
  
"What do you mean, despite what I did to him?" Ash called back to her  
across the crater. "I killed Gary that day I left the League! Has he  
somehow learned to Recover himself?"  
  
"Recovery," she mused, a finger at her chin. "A most powerful technique.  
With the power of resurrection at your fingertips, one does not need to  
be afraid of anything. The greatest powers in the world would mean  
nothing to him. Me." She looked pointedly at him. "Or you."  
  
Ash felt his rage begin to build. "It doesn't matter if he can come back  
to life or not! I'll kill him - over and over again - until he stays  
dead!"  
  
"So stubborn," she said throatily. "One of the things I always liked  
about you."  
  
"What have you done with Misty? Where is she?"  
  
Her blue eyes flared so bright within her hood for a second it almost  
blinded him. "Misty? MISTY!" she screamed. "Always Misty! Even when I  
didn't know it was her, she was always there in the background ruining  
things for me!" She chuckled, her voice sinister. "Very well." She lifted  
her arm, her pure white pikachu crawling along it from her shoulder until  
it was clutching at her wrist and hand. "Have it your way, Ashura!  
my Pet, transform to Holy Blade!"   
  
"PEEKA!" it shouted as she threw her pikachu in the air where it flashed  
once and formed into a shining, white katana, which she caught in her  
right hand. It could have been a twin for his Shadow Blade, save it was  
white.  
  
Then she took a running leap off the edge and powerfully propelled  
herself across the fifty foot long crater of lava separating them, turned  
a somersault once, white cloak flapping, then descended, swinging her  
sword down at him.  
  
Ash quickly rolled along the edge sideways, out of the way. Valdera  
narrowly missed him, as she slashed the ledge he was just standing on  
with her glowing long blade. Ash retaliated by throwing a bolt of  
electric shadow at her from his hands, but she backflipped away on to  
another ledge, dodging it, as the rocks she sliced with her sword, split  
open, and the whole ledge began to slide down into the lava crater. Ash  
rolled on to his feet and leaped off the sliding rock and over to the  
ledge his pikachu was laying on unconscious. He quickly laid his hands on  
his pokemon and woke him up with a charge of healing. The ledge of rock  
he had just been standing on sizzled and steamed as it sank into the  
lava.  
  
"Pika?" Pikachu said, sitting up, and wiping his blue eyes with his paws.  
  
"Sorry for the rude awakening, Pikachu, but I think I need your help!" he  
said as he dodged a shot of light from Valdera, which melted into the  
stone wall next to him. "Quick, Shadow Blade!"  
  
Pikachu complied, and soon he was evenly matched with her, his own  
elemental sword's hilt clutched in both of his hands.  
  
Valdera twisted to the side and beckoned at him with her free hand. "Just  
like old times, huh Ashura?" she asked, with a devilish look in her  
glowing blue eyes. Then she threw her white hood back, revealing her  
beautiful face, and shook her head once, to shake her long blonde hair  
free, which fell down her back in waves of spun sunlight. "Let's see if  
you've gotten any better along with the years." She leaped off the ledge  
turning a somersault and landed on to a large chunk of rock floating in  
the lava, in the centre of the wide cavern.  
  
Ash followed, jumping off his own ledge, turned a half twist in the air,  
then landed lightly on his feet on to the floating rock, his cloak  
flapping around him freely before it settled. Steam rose all around him  
and the heat seemed unbearable.  
  
"You sure do like to fight in dramatic places, Valdera," he said  
lightly, as he lifted his gleaming black sword to the ready. He blew a  
lock of his hair away from his eyes with a gust of breath and a tilt of  
his lips. "You haven't changed a bit."  
  
"What can I say?" she quipped, her red lips in a half-smile, dark lashes  
blinking sultrily at him. "I'm an exciting type of girl." She lifted her  
own glowing white sword out vertically in front of her with both hands.  
"Come, Ashura. The prophesies have stated that the one who wields light  
is equal to the one who wields shadow. Let us test the truth of that  
statement!"  
  
Soon the clashing of swords drowned out the hissing and steaming of the  
lava beneath them.  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty surfed quickly along the tunnels, riding on her black star pokemon,  
Starmos, as she desperately searched for a tunnel leading to the area  
underneath where Ash had been sucked into. Her long red hair and her  
cloak flapped in the wind as she sped along at high speed. On her  
shoulder clutched Togepi, the small egg pokemon lighting her way using  
its Flash ability.  
  
"Who would've thought you would actually be *useful* one day," Misty  
mused, as she tilted Starmos sideways, banking a particularly sharp  
corner.  
  
"Priiii!" Togepi chirped happily.  
  
As she passed another narrow opening, she suddenly had a very strong  
feeling that it led directly to where she wanted to go. She didn't know  
how, she just knew.  
  
"Starmos, one-eighty turn now!"  
  
The star pokemon complied silently by rising upwards, flipping her around  
upside-down, to face the opposite direction, before spinning around  
again, so that Misty was the right way up.  
  
She banked right into the tunnel and was elated as it led downwards and  
twisted around into the direction of the area Ash must have fallen in to.   
"Don't worry, Ash! I'm coming!" she said aloud, to make herself feel   
better. She leaned forward and directed her star pokemon forward with a   
burst of speed. There was a red light up ahead. "Togepi, return!" she  
said, recalling the small pokemon back into its poke-ball.  
  
Unnoticed behind her, a black mist followed relentlessly, tendrils of  
darkness reaching outwards, hissing as it did so.  
  
  
  
  
  
The black and white swords crashed together unrelentingly. The two  
Master's continued their dances of death as they circled one another,  
each trying to find the fatal weak spot, thrusting, parrying, thrusting,  
then stepping backwards for a slight catching of breath. Then the cycle  
started anew, sharp katanas of light and shadow sliding against each  
other, black and white electric sparks emitting at each point of contact.  
  
Ash feinted, then sliced sideways, impossibly fast, while Valdera spun  
around, just narrowly dodging the strike, a part of her white cloak  
getting cut off, then as she spun, she twisted into a low sweep of her  
feet hoping to trip him over. Ash avoided that by jumping slightly, but  
was forced to block an expertly aimed slash awkwardly with his sword,  
allowing it to slide down and also cut a part of his black cloak off.  
Then their swords locked into place, each of them straining to break the  
hold, their faces inches close to each other. But their strength was also  
equal as they strained against each other and so they were motionless for  
more than a few moments. Both of their cloaks regenerated their lost   
material with a sparkle of energy during the struggle.  
  
"You're still my equal, Ashura," she breathed, licking her lips. A thin  
line of sweat ran down her brow, which she caught with her tongue. Then  
she smiled at him.  
  
Ash blew the hair away from his eyes again. "Neither of us can win," he  
stated. "This fight is pointless." A thin line of sweat also ran down his  
cheek.  
  
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," she disagreed. "This has been the most fun  
I've had in three years!" And with that, she leaned forward the three  
inches separating their faces and kissed him on the mouth, her tongue  
shockingly thrusting between his lips. Then she broke it, by sliding her  
sword away, and hand-flipped away backwards, and landed in a crouch.  
  
Ash knelt down on one knee and spat off the edge of the rock, his saliva  
hissing as it fell into the red hot lava. He wiped his mouth with the  
back of his hand.  
  
"That was uncalled for," Ash said, his face turning red.  
  
"Oh, poo!" she laughed. "We've done it plenty of times in the past."  
  
Ash stood up, ready to continue the fight. "The difference, Valdera, is  
that I'm no longer your boyfriend to use for your amusement."  
  
"Who cares about titles?" she asked as she also stood up to resume the  
battle.  
  
Then Ash sensed a new pokemon and looked up. Out of one of the many holes  
in the stony wall up above, a blue cloaked figure riding on a black star  
came flying out.  
  
"Ash!" Misty's voice shouted from up above.  
  
"Misty!" Ash answered.  
  
Valdera's blue eyes began to flare up again. "Sister, you're always  
ruining my fun!" She pointed her sword at the Water Master riding the  
star pokemon. "Pikachu! Lightning Beam!"  
  
Ash watched horrified, unable to stop her in time, as a thick, jagged  
white beam of electrical energy shot forth from the tip of her sword.  
  
However, strangely, the white beam of powerful energy seemed to miss her  
as if repelled, as Misty banked sideways to fly down towards them. The  
shot, instead, struck into the cavern wall melting the stone with a thick  
hiss, the newly burnt hole dripping red molten rock.  
  
Valdera seemed shocked. "I missed? I never miss!" she said with a hand  
covering her mouth. She looked absolutely stupefied as Misty descended  
further towards them on her pokemon.  
  
"Get away from Ash!" Misty shouted angrily. "Starmos, Hyper Beam!" From  
the front most razor sharp limb of the star pokemon she was riding, a  
multi-coloured beam of intense power shot forth, down directly at   
her. But Valdera raised her white sword and reflected the beam down into  
the lava where it melted the molten rock even more.  
  
"Ha!" The blonde sister smirked up at her. "At least that worked! Now  
Misty, you want to come down here where we can have a good old fashioned  
bitch fight? You know, like when we were kids, we'd fight over who got to  
sleep on the top bunk-bed! Or whichever of us got to put the termites in  
our older sisters panty drawer!"  
  
"Gladly," Misty said as she finally reached them and jumped off her  
pokemon and somersaulted to land on the small rock island. She swept her  
long red hair off her shoulders and raised her hands, ready to fight.  
  
"This is going to be satisfying," Valdera stated, grinning. She stuck her  
sword's point into the rocky ground behind her, then flexed her fingers,  
the knuckles cracking.  
  
"Um, girls," Ash said.  
  
"Quiet!" Misty said.  
  
"You stay out of this!" Valdera added.  
  
"Okay, geez," Ash said, sticking his sword into the ground then turning  
around and lifting his arms into the air, exasperated.  
  
There was a couple feminine grunts from behind him, the fight just  
beginning, as Ash stared into the lava. Women could be so immature, he  
thought. Then he turned around again to watch the fight.  
  
"Take this, you bitch!" Misty shouted as she rotated in a spin-kick,  
catching Valdera in the stomach.  
  
Valdera coughed, then smiled weakly. "Is that all you got, girl? Now you  
take this!" she said as she caught Misty's foot as her sister tried to  
kick her again, and tripped her over in a bundle of blue material. Then  
she stepped forward and punched her in the back. Misty squealed, then  
rolled away and flipped on to her feet again.  
  
Watching them fight, the similarities between the siblings was further  
hammered into Ash's brain. The two were of equal height, about  
five-feet-ten, and of similar build, their slim, but athletic bodies  
curving in more or less the same ways. The only major differences,   
aside from their different coloured hair, which were about the same  
length anyway and falling almost past waist level in the same style;  
loose over their shoulders, was that the way they 'wore' their facial  
expressions. They were both beautiful, but while Valdera's beauty was the  
type that screamed out at you and oozed sexuality, Misty's was the type  
you could just stare at and become enchanted with, a quieter, more  
reserved beauty.  
  
"Take this!" Misty shouted, punching Valdera in the left breast.  
  
Valdera screamed. "That was a cheap-shot! Take this!" she shouted,   
kicking Misty between the legs.  
  
This time it was Misty's turn to scream. "You're just lucky I'm not a  
guy!" she cried. And then the fight degenerated into several rounds of  
hair-pulling.  
  
"You let go!"  
  
"No, you!"  
  
Then a loud hissing was in the air. Ash immediately pulled his sword out  
of the ground and looked up. Sure enough, a black mist was oozing out of  
the upper walls. "Girls stop it! The mist is here!"  
  
Misty and Valdera immediately stopped pulling each other's hair.  
  
"Starmos, to me!" Misty called, recalling her star pokemon from its  
position hovering above them, while Valdera flipped over to her sword  
and yanked it out of the rock she had stuck it in.  
  
Valdera raised her head to observe whatever it was that had grabbed Ash's  
attention. "Oh, it's only Missingno. I'll take care of this so Misty and  
I can get back to our long delayed fight." She pointed her sword  
at it. "Missingno! Master Pokemon of Shadow! Cease advancing now! I  
command you as the Light Master of the Pokemon League!"  
  
The black mist continued to spill into the cavern, more and more of it  
entering through the openings, not slowing down at all. It continued to  
hiss a snake-like sound.  
  
"Was it supposed to do that?" Misty asked, worried.  
  
Valdera was also beginning to get a worried look. "Cease I say!"  
  
"It's not stopping," Ash shouted. "We have to get out of here!"  
  
"This is impossible! It's supposed to follow the orders of any League  
Pokemon Master!"  
  
"Who told you that?" Ash asked angrily. "Demon Pokemon are  
uncontrollable!"  
  
"B-" She closed her mouth and looked at him. "Who cares who told me that!  
We have to stop it!" She pointed her sword at the thick mist above them.  
"I'll do it, my element is strong against shadow."  
  
"But shadow is also strong against light," Ash exclaimed. "And look how  
much of it is here already. It won't be long before we're overpowered!"  
  
Misty hopped on to her star pokemon. "Starmos! Enlarge!" The pokemon  
complied, raising its diameter by a third. She looked at them. "Both of  
you hop on! Valdera can melt our way to the surface using her Lightning  
Beam, while Ash can navigate our way there!"  
  
"Great idea, Misty," Ash congratulated her. He threw his sword into the  
air. "Pikachu return!" With a crack of thunder, the sword reformed back  
into the dark coloured electric mouse. "Hop in my backpack," he said as  
he jumped on board and held on to Misty's sides.  
  
"Pika," Pikachu agreed, jumping inside the small brown pack strapped to  
Ash's shoulders.  
  
"Wait, how am I going to get a clear shot if I ride in the back and low  
to the ground?" Valdera asked, eyeing the black mist above them getting  
closer by the second.  
  
Ash thought fast. "Here, you can ride on my shoulders," he said.  
  
"Are you crazy?!" she exclaimed. "I'll fall off!"  
  
"I'll hold your waist with my hands."  
  
"But then how are you going to hold on to Mistaria?"  
  
"I'll hold him," Misty said. "I'll fly us backwards."  
  
Ash slapped himself in the face. "This is insane!"  
  
"So insane, I love it!" Valdera shouted. "Let's go!"  
  
Soon with Ash and Misty face to face, with Misty facing backwards and  
hugging Ash steady, Valdera facing forwards, riding on Ash's shoulders  
with her white sword held out in front of her, while Ash held her steady  
and navigated, all on top of the Misty's star pokemon, they took off.  
  
"Lightning Beam!" Valdera shouted, aiming her sword at the east stone  
wall. The rocks melted and gave way to form a tunnel, and Misty flew them  
inside, while the Light Master continued to shoot out her intense energy  
laser tunnelling them even further.  
  
The black mist followed relentlessly.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Z-Zu, we're almost to the surface," Duplica-Zubat stated as she flew  
around in front of them. "Zu, and I'll be happy to get out of this  
ridiculous form!"  
  
"Thank the spirits," Bruno said as he tugged Junior back on to his  
shoulder for probably the hundredth time. "The lad's been growing since   
I last noticed it! He's getting heavy."  
  
Soon a point of light appeared in front of them, then finally they were  
all outside, gasping for breath in the fresh air, and lying in the soft  
grass. The sun was streaming down in warm waves within a pure blue sky,  
with beautiful fluffy white clouds. By position of the sun, it looked  
like they had been walking through the tunnel for one full night and most  
of the morning.  
  
"I can't believe I'd be so happy to see the green grass again," James  
said as he lay face down, kissing the grass.  
  
"I never want to see another mountain tunnel again as long as I live!"  
Jessie exclaimed as she lay on her back staring at the blue sky.  
  
Persian romped around in the grass. He had found some cat-nip and was  
having the time of his life.  
  
Bruno sighed as he toppled over, still holding Junior in his arms. He was  
too tired to move.  
  
Next to him, Duplica shifted back into human form. "Ahhhh, yessss!" she  
breathed as she lay rolling around on the grass. "I don't want to see  
another *zubat* as long as I live!"  
  
Bruno turned to give her a smart-aleck comment but instead, his face  
burned bright red and his throat locked up.  
  
Duplica lay on her side and shook her blue hair free from grass, but many  
strands were still sticking in it. "What is it?" She looked down at her  
body. "Oops! I forgot the clothes again! Silly me!" she giggled, as she  
waved her hand over her body and an emerald green tank-top formed over  
her breasts, while a short matching mini-skirt and panties covered the  
lower part of her body.  
  
The only one who wasn't extremely happy, was Laselle as she sadly looked  
back into the dark mouth of the cave they had just exited from. It wasn't  
a main entrance, but just a small crack, just big enough to let Bruno  
squeeze through. It had probably opened during that weird earthquake when  
they were still deep inside the bowels of the mountain.  
  
"I hope Ash and Misty are okay," she said, sniffing.  
  
They grew silent at that. Even Persian who was currently high on  
cat-nip.  
  
And then suddenly there was a massive explosion high up on the mountain  
as a beam of white light shot through, rocks, melting as it did so.  
Startled, everyone looked up to watch as after a few moments, the beam of  
light faded and soon there were three cloaked figures spiralling crazily  
in the sky as they shot out of the opening, as well as a star shaped  
pokemon.  
  
Then a thick mist of blackness emerged out of the hole as well, but then  
screamed in pain as the sun's rays struck it, and it began smoking. It  
retreated back into the mountain, hissing as it did so.  
  
Laselle laughed. "They're alive!" And she began to run towards the area  
where they must have landed.  
  
Everyone followed behind her, their spirits rising.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Ugh." Ash was the first to awaken. It felt like he was lying on soft  
green grass. He opened his eyes to stare at the blue, blue sky, and he  
realised that the warm feeling on his skin was just the golden rays of   
the sun.  
  
He rolled over on to his side. Misty lay a few feet away. She had landed  
face first with her bottom raised up in the air. He suddenly had the  
uncontrollable urge to crawl over and pinch it. He repressed the urge.  
  
He rolled around in the opposite direction to see if her sister had  
survived the escape. But Valdera was nowhere to be seen. He frowned. Even  
though she was a lot of trouble, he hoped she survived. He rolled back  
over to look at the sky again. It was peaceful.  
  
"PIKA!"  
  
"Ouch!" Ash said as he was given a slight electric shock from underneath  
him. He rolled over and let Pikachu out of his backpack. "Oh, damn,  
sorry, Pikachu! I forgot you were still in there!"  
  
"Pikachu," Pikachu said crossly, as he jumped out of the bag and smoothed  
the creases in his tail.  
  
"Will you forgive me?"  
  
Pikachu looked back at him, small black nose twitching. "Chu?"  
  
"Okay, you get an extra helping of ketchup tonight," Ash agreed. "You  
deserve it little fella."  
  
"Pikachu!" Pikachu said happily, doing a little dance. Then his pointed  
ears twitched. "Chu?"  
  
Then the whole gang descended upon them, Laselle first, who flew into his  
arms, followed by Duplica and Bruno, who was still carrying the  
unconscious Junior, and Jessie and James and Persian.  
  
Misty finally groaned and awoke. She noticed her provocative position on  
the ground and blushed, turning over. "I hope none of you were staring at  
my bottom!" she said with a disgusted tone in her voice.  
  
"Why should we?" Ash joked. "You need to go on a diet, Misty!"  
  
"Why you!" she said angrily, but it was a pretended anger, a smile  
curving her lips. Then she thought of something and looked all around.  
"Where's my sister?"  
  
"Gone," Ash answered, breathing a little hard, Laselle was squeezing him  
so tightly. "I'm sure she made it, so don't worry about that."  
  
"Yeah she better, otherwise I won't get to kick her ass again!"  
  
James was moaning. "I can't believe we missed the party last night! And I  
was looking forward to it all week too."  
  
"Worse than that," Jessie wailed. "We left the one outlaw we caught alive  
on the other side of the mountain! By the time we go back there the long  
way around - no way I am *ever* setting foot in that death-trap again -  
he'll have already escaped!"  
  
Ash, however, had already stood up, looking south-east towards the  
horizon and the Cerulean ruins. In the far distance, stood a massive   
black tower of stone, so high up, it was almost touching the clouds.  
  
"I was right," Ash said softly, his cloak flapping gently in the light  
breeze.  
  
"What do you mean?" Misty asked him, standing up to look at the  
tower off in the distance.  
  
Duplica was also staring at the massive structure. "This is bad," she  
said tightly. "Very bad."  
  
"What's that tower for?" Laselle asked, looking at it fearfully. She  
tightened her cloak around her neck, it felt suddenly cold.  
  
Ash was silent a long time. "It's for opening a gate to the other side,"  
he finally said in a dead tone. "A gate to the Spirit's Plane." He   
swallowed. "A gate to Hell."  
  
Duplica began to recite in a low haunting tone,  
  
  
"Light and darkness, darkness and light,  
Twice and thrice shall the battle be fought.  
When the towers of dread arise,  
the ending shall be wrought.  
And life will be made to kneel,  
from the souls of those who sought."  
  
  
She ended in a shiver. "It will be like the Dark Pokemon Wars all over  
again."   
  
  
*** End Part 5  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Electric Shield  
Type : Electricity  
  
A barrier of dark-blue electro-magnetic energy is generated. Stops all  
physical and most elemental attacks.  
  
  
Attack : Shadow Repel  
Type : Shadow  
  
A brute-force surge of power which repels darkness and shadow type  
elemental energies.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
I don't think the Farfetch'd guy was ever given a name so I just called  
him Farley. I hope no one minds ^-^. Oh, and sorry Mikey fans. But I'm  
afraid he annoyed me in the anime (same with Farfetch'd guy). I bet it  
was obvious ^-^. See? If you're a fanfic author you get to have revenge  
on all those characters that annoy you!  
  
Oh, and Missingno does exist. It's the famous "glitch" pokemon which can  
destroy your save data if you catch it. It's called Missingno because  
it's pokemon number 000. Pretty dangerous, no? I'd like to thank Tim  
Miller for his work of fanfiction, 'The Terror of MissingNo', which first  
informed me of this "glitch" pokemon. It's really great, you should find  
it and read it. Original flavour with a twist.  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	6. Reactions

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 6 - Reactions  
  
  
The wind was frightfully cold as it blew past, with the small group of  
people rapidly speeding across the lightly forested land. The full moon  
up above was half covered by a thin layer of grey clouds and the smell of  
moist vegetation hung lightly in the night air. Many trees and bushes  
blurred by their sides as they hurried as fast as they could.  
  
Misty leaned forward and silently ordered Starmos to give another slight  
burst of speed. As her black star pokemon complied from underneath her,  
she felt Ash, who was riding behind, clutch her sides tighter. She began  
to feel a little warm, but then ignored it as she concentrated on guiding  
them around trees and other obstacles on their way east.  
  
Behind them, she could hear the hooves of a Rapidash fire horse gallop,  
the sound slightly muffled by the grassy floor of the forest. It kept  
pace easily despite the large weight of the three people riding her;  
Bruno keeping the unconscious Junior steady in front of him, while  
Laselle rode behind him, clutching his sides. Duplica would most probably  
be complaining about her back when they finally stopped.  
  
They were all that was left currently in their group though. Jessie,  
James and Persian had decided to split up with them back at Mount Moon.  
But the three mercenaries did say that they might meet up with them  
further east in one of the towns. They had said that it might be  
interesting and profitable if they could find some more wanted outlaws to  
make up for lost money back at the mountain.  
  
Misty's hair was being blown back violently by their movement and in her  
head she apologised to Ash, whose face must have been whipped by it for  
quite some time now. As she banked a particularly steep left turn around  
a tall tree, leaves and foliage blowing to the sides, she heard Ash hiss  
quietly from behind her.  
  
"Watch it Misty," he warned, his soft but deep voice carrying to her  
perfectly despite the wind rushing past. "There's an army of League  
Trainers and soldiers a bit to the north."  
  
"But we have to pass that way," she said back to him. "The forest  
gets thicker to the south."  
  
"Fine," he replied quietly. "Just ride past them. I'll take care of it."  
  
"You're not going to kill them are you?"  
  
She felt his head shake. "Of course not. There's too many of them. We  
don't want to create a disturbance. Even though they probably know we're  
coming eventually, it's better if we don't announce to them in bold  
letters that we're here."  
  
The forest began to get thinner of trees and finally they shot out  
on to a grassy plain. To their right they spotted the distant orange  
lights of fires burning and hundreds of tents with many people walking  
about. It was a League army camp.  
  
"Go slightly more to the north, then loop around the army to the east,"  
Ash voiced.  
  
"Can't they see us?" Bruno worriedly asked.  
  
"No," Ash answered. "I'm cloaking us in shadows."  
  
"Cool," Laselle said.  
  
And he was right. Misty watched as they sped around the large campsite  
without so much as a sound from the many League sentries on look-out  
duty. At one point they had even been riding only about two dozen feet  
away from a guard in plain sight, yet he not seen them or even heard  
them as he whistled in a bored tone, facing in their exact direction.   
  
Misty looked angrily at the carousing men within the camp. No doubt  
they were celebrating yet another successful destruction of one of the  
poor settlements around this area. She had stopped counting the number of  
burned down villages they had passed on their journey to the Cerulean  
ruins. Black skeletons of once lively villages and the many corpses of  
men and even women lying where they had been slain, their murderers not  
even having the decency to give them a decent burial.  
  
After riding around the army's camp, they re-entered the sparse forest  
and continued their way east. It wasn't until two more hours and it was a  
quarter to midnight that Bruno mentioned that they had to stop soon as  
Junior, who was still unconscious, was burning up with fever.  
  
"I guess we will have to," Misty agreed. "Starmos is tiring also."  
  
Ash was silent for a few moments before he answered. "Okay, let's find  
the next suitable campsite."  
  
As they continued onward, the trees abruptly grew thinner again and when  
they cleared out completely, they saw a human settlement upon the plains.  
It looked like it hadn't been raided by the League yet and was fairly  
small. However, it appeared to be highly defended with tall stone walls  
that were about two dozen feet high surrounding it completely in a tight  
circle, and on the top battlements, walked serious looking sentries and  
guards as well as archers.  
  
Misty, with Ash riding double, directed Starmos back to the cover of some  
trees with Bruno and the rest following. "Looks like a likely place to  
spend the night," Misty said. "They might also have some medical supplies  
for Junior that it looks like he needs."  
  
"They could be suspicious of us," Bruno said, as he carefully stepped  
down from Duplica-Rapidash carrying Junior in his arms. Laselle swung her  
leg over and also leaped off. The Fire Horse snorted, then began to blur  
as she changed back to a woman with dark-blue hair dressed in a long  
violet cloak.  
  
"My back is killing me," Duplica muttered as she rubbed her behind.  
  
"Aren't the towns around here neutral to the League and the  
Rebellion?" Bruno continued.  
  
Duplica peered around one of the trees they had sought cover and took a  
peek. "Well judging from the alert looks on those guards, it certainly  
looks like they know what's been going on around here with the League  
attacking just about every human town in sight."  
  
Ash let go of Misty's sides, the air suddenly seeming colder as he did  
so, and stepped down to the ground. He brushed his wind-blown, black   
hair with his fingers and adjusted the straps of his small brown   
backpack. "It looks like they were even attacked once before from  
the recent burn marks on the stone walls," he stated. "And that army we  
passed could very well be heading here next."  
  
Laselle gasped. "But there were hundreds of League Trainers in that  
army! We've got to help them!"  
  
Bruno shook his head. "I'm afraid it would be probably be best if we left  
this to fate. If Ash and Duplica are right about the return of the Dark  
Wars, then getting to that damn tower is our top priority." He shifted  
his grip on Junior's limp body. "Hell, the last Dark Wars destroyed all  
of the major cities in the world as well as more than three quarters of  
the world's population! If we allowed them to happen again, there would  
be nothing left."  
  
Laselle looked accusingly at him, her brown eyes fierce. "But we can't  
just leave them here! It would be murder!" She looked at Ash, eyes  
pleading with him. "I bet Ash could just wave his arm once and destroy  
that army!"  
  
Ash stiffled a laugh with one hand. "I appreciate your confidence in me,  
Laselle, but I'm afraid even I couldn't do that so easily."  
  
Misty stepped off her star pokemon and recalled it back to badge form so  
she could pin it on her blue cloak. "The fact remains that we need  
somewhere to rest for the night and Junior needs treatment. What say we  
head off to that settlement, and if it gets attacked while we're still in  
it, we can always help a little bit." She swept her red hair back over  
her shoulders.  
  
Ash rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose." He narrowed his eyes at  
the unconscious Junior. "He wasn't supposed to slow us down, Bruno, but  
seeing as how we all need the rest, especially after that ordeal at the  
mountain, I guess we deserve it. Pikachu certainly does. " He turned  
slightly showing Pikachu's snoring head inside the top of his pack.  
  
Then he lifted his arms out slightly and his long black cloak, glowed  
darkly for a few moments before it suddenly disappeared, leaving him  
dressed in his black, short-sleeved shirt and dark, loose-fitting long  
pants. "We'll have to go in our civies though, so we don't attract any  
suspicion," he said, shrugging so his backpack settled more comfortably  
on his shoulders.  
  
Misty also recalled her cloak away, leaving her dressed in a soft blue  
dress with a long slitted skirt which slightly revealed one long slender  
leg. Bruno did the same and was left wearing maroon trousers and a muscle  
shirt, showing off his extremely muscular frame.  
  
Duplica just waved her hand once, her cloak disappearing to leave her in  
her sexy green dress that she wore underneath. She looked at Bruno's  
revealed body. "Rowr," she said, smiling.  
  
Bruno sighed. "Can't you be serious for once Duplica?"  
  
"Sorry," she lightly laughed. Then she looked at Ash's revealed body  
which was athletic and muscularly slim. "Besides, isn't Ashy so adorable   
without that evil-looking black cloak he always wears? A shame to cover   
up such cuteness."  
  
"I'll agree with that," Laselle said, eyeing Ash's body.  
  
Blood rushed to Misty's face. "If you'll stop admiring the men, let's  
go."  
  
Duplica grinned evilly at her as if she knew something Misty didn't.  
  
Ash, for his part, wasn't really paying attention as he thought deeply  
about something. He looked up. "So we're all ready then? Let's head down  
and see if we can get inside. Don't make any sudden movements and we  
should be able to convince them that we're just down-on-their-luck  
travellers in need of a place to stay and help for our fallen companion."  
  
Duplica folded her arms underneath her ample breasts and smiled at Ash.  
"Just let me do the talking, or shall I say, posing, and I'm sure the men  
will let us in." She laughed evilly again.  
  
Misty silently fumed, she didn't know why she was so annoyed. "Okay,  
let's go then," she practically shouted.  
  
Ash looked at her with a bewildered expression on his face. Then  
he shrugged. "Must be that time of the-"  
  
Bruno ran up to him, Junior slung on his shoulder, and clapped his free  
hand on his mouth. "Don't say it," he warned.  
  
"Mrrpflphth," Ash said.  
  
Then they all stepped out of the forest and on to the grassy plains,  
Bruno leading so that the injured Junior in his arms was plainly visible.  
Soon they stood before the massive steel gates of the walled-in town. The  
guards had already spotted them for some time already and now looked  
carefully at the six ordinary-seeming people, with one of them injured  
and being carried in the largest man's arms, from atop the high stone  
walls.  
  
"Who goes there?" The gate keeper standing on the front battlement called  
down to them.  
  
Duplica stepped forward, shivering for effect in her flimsy green dress.  
"Only us weary travellers, good sir!" she called out. "We hope you would  
be so gracious so as to let us stay the night."  
  
"Sir, they don't look like League Trainers to me," one of the guards  
said, eyeing the blue-haired woman's body. Other guards were checking out  
the other woman with red hair and in the blue dress, while even the  
female guards were looking at the muscular man and the man dressed in  
black. But mostly at the man dressed in black.  
  
"Appearances can be deceiving," the gate keeper said back to him. "Get  
Nurse Joy here on the double!"  
  
A couple of minutes later, a pretty young woman dressed in white with  
dark red hair worn in a high ponytail stepped on to the battlement and  
looked down at them. She seemed to narrow her blue eyes at all of them,  
then gasped.  
  
"Let them in immediately!" she called out. "I can already sense they are  
good people, but that boy seems to have heavy injury!"  
  
The massive double steel gates slowly creaked open to reveal the town  
within, with many prosperous looking stone houses and buildings. The six  
weary people stepped in gratefully.  
  
  
  
  
  
The large man in the hooded brown cloak, smirked as he looked out the   
open window of the tower. At this altitude the full moon was plainly   
visible in the night sky, so much so, he could even see the craters in   
the surface that meteors had caused.  
  
From this height he could see from miles around, from the distant peaks  
of Mount Moon, to the dark tip of Pokemon Tower. Down below on the plains  
far to the south near the Saffron City ruins, he could see fires burning,  
no doubt a battle of some sort. The rebellion were fools to try to  
protect the insignificant human settlements when the real threat was  
right here and at the other two focus points.  
  
"Just why didn't Missingno obey my commands?" an angry female voice  
suddenly shouted from behind him.  
  
The man slowly turned around to see the white-cloaked blonde with her  
pikachu sitting on her shoulder. Her head was unhooded, letting her long  
hair free around her shoulders and exposing her exquisite face. "So  
you're back, Valdera?" He smiled darkly. "Were you off spreading your legs  
for your old boyfriend?"  
  
The blonde standing at the door, seemed to shimmer with light, and then  
she was suddenly right in front of him. She grabbed him with one slim  
hand by the folds of clothing on his chest and hoisted him up high  
without even seeming to exert herself. Then she spun around and slammed  
his back into the stone wall, breaking more than a few chunks of rock  
from it. Quite an amazing feat since he was almost a full foot taller  
than she was and more than double the weight.  
  
"I'll ask again," her soft voice said, that was usually so sensual, but  
now seemed menacing. "Why didn't Missingno, the shadow pokemon, obey my  
commands?" Her artic blue eyes flared icily.  
  
"No need to show off your power to me, Valdera," the man said mockingly.  
"Anyhow, maybe you weren't exerting enough of your influence on it so it  
didn't obey you." Then his own dark brown eyes flared up within the  
shadows of his hood. "Or maybe it saw you as a threat to the Pokemon  
League." He abruptly broke her grip from his chest with one swing of his  
powerful arm, and landed on the floor with a thump.  
  
The blonde stepped away from him, thoughtful. Then she smiled, her  
shapely mouth turning up at the corners. "Perhaps," she said. "I am,  
after all, a threat to everyone." She tossed her head once sending her  
long hair floating to the side, then took her pure white pikachu down  
from her shoulder and patted it on the head. "Come my pet. I feel so icky  
after all that work in the mountain." She turned around and began to walk  
out of the small tower room, hips swaying within her cloak.  
  
The man stared at her back. "The Master has ordered you to transport  
Lance to the Palace of the Elite Four. It is almost time."  
  
She stopped walking then replied without turning around. "Fine. But if  
Ashura gets here when I'm gone, save him for me." Then she continued out  
of the room and slammed the door powerfully. Chunks of stone rained down  
from the roof.  
  
The man in the brown cloak stared at the closed door for a few moments  
more. Then he smirked again. "Oh, I'll leave something for you alright.  
Just the way you want him." Then he too left the room, but in search of a  
woman. Valdera always did that to him.  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty laid back in the bed in her guest room, with her arms folded up  
behind her head, and stared at the cracks running across the plaster  
ceiling. It was a surprise to see that within the town, it was actually  
quite technologically advanced compared to others. For one thing, there  
was running water out of taps and even working plumbing. She always hated  
chamber pots ever since they were re-introduced. The world had lost so  
much technology within a short span of five years.  
  
Even the bed was soft. She hadn't laid down in a bed in a long time. It  
seemed sleeping bags were her standard bedding nowadays. The wooden door  
creaked open and she lifted her head slightly to see who it was. Seeing  
Duplica walk in, dressed in a pair of violet pyjamas and her blue hair  
done up in two high ponytails just like when they had first met her, only  
made her frown and think about Ash. She hated thinking about Ash. She  
laid her head back down, and brushed away a wayward strand of red hair  
that had fallen in her eyes.  
  
"You were right, Duplica," she said in a disgusted tone. "After one look  
at you, and the men couldn't wait to let us in."  
  
"Oh, I saw more than a few looking at you too," Duplica said, her voice  
merry. "But it was Joy who really let us in." Then her tone changed,  
surprisingly serious. "Okay, Misty, this isn't a social call. Or maybe it  
is one, depending on how you look at it. But spill the beans okay? What  
happened between you and Ash? It disgusts me to see you two who were once  
so close, now so far away. At least on the surface." She sat down on a  
nearby couch and tucked her legs underneath her.  
  
Misty's guard went up. "Why don't you ask Ash?"  
  
"I did ask Ash," she said in a frustrated tone. "Now I'm asking you. I'm  
also curious about how you've kind of been acting cold towards me.  
Weren't we friends in the past?"  
  
"Why don't you also ask Ash?" she repeated, but in an angrier tone.  
  
"You still love him, don't you?" Duplica suddenly said confidently.  
  
Misty began to feel trapped. "L-Love? How could I love a traitor like  
him?"  
  
"But didn't you split up before Ash became a traitor to your cause? And  
how could he technically have been a traitor when he stuck with the  
Pokemon League? In fact, it was the rebellion who are technically the  
traitors. They were the one's who split off from the League in the first  
place, after the Dark Wars."  
  
"But everyone knew the League was going too far in their thirst for  
power. And besides, Ash sticking with the League is not the reason I call  
him a traitor."  
  
"Then why *do* you call him a traitor?"  
  
However Misty stayed silent. She was not going to answer any more  
questions. "Why don't you ask Ash?" she asked again, in a tone of  
finality.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash was sitting on the roof of the small guest house that he had been  
given to stay in. The night's air was cold as he looked up at the black  
sky, glittering with hundreds of thousands of white stars. Pikachu  
sitting next to him slurped happily on two open bottles of ketchup, one  
in each of his small paws.  
  
"You know, you seem to be a lot different to how I knew you when you  
fought in the League." It was Bruno. Ash had sensed him a while ago and  
had already been alert to his presence.  
  
Bruno walked across, carefully picking his way over the roof slates, then  
sat down next to him. "In the Dark Wars, it was like you were a man  
possessed. Like you didn't have anything to live for. Of course I didn't  
know you too well, but that's how you came across to me."  
  
Ash didn't look at him as he continued to stare at the stars. "Those days  
are a blur to me now. I was barely living."  
  
They looked at the sky in silence for a moment. Then Bruno broke it. "I  
wasn't too surprised when you didn't break off from the League when we  
did. You just seemed content to continue whatever it was you were doing.  
To mindlessly follow orders, even though the war was over and the League  
had started a new objective." He smiled darkly. "And of course you had  
that beautiful blonde girl to keep you company. What was her name? Val?"  
  
"Yeah," Ash responded quietly. "Val."   
  
He laughed. "I remember that Brock was so jealous. But he can count his  
lucky stars that she was ga-ga over you and not him. Look what she is  
now." But then he closed his eyes. "But it's hard to believe that he's  
gone. Brock, I mean. He seemed ... well ... like a rock. Indestructible.  
Unchanging."  
  
Ash finally stopped looking at the stars and looked at him. "So when did  
Misty join the Rebellion?"  
  
Bruno opened his eyes and reminisced. "Oh, I think it was a little over  
two years ago. She came back after some god-awful journey looking almost  
half-dead. But then Erika nursed her back to health. It was a surprise to  
see that she had mastered the element of water too, on her journey to   
wherever. She must have been involved in the Dark Wars somehow." He   
looked at him. "I know that you and Misty have some sort of past, but I'm   
not going to pry it out of you. I sense a lot of pain in that area, from   
Misty and even you."  
  
"That means you're smarter than Duplica," Ash said jokingly. "Anyway.  
enough about me. What about you? I knew you were best friends with the  
other Elite Four. Lance, Agatha and Lorelei. It must've been hard leaving  
them behind for your views."  
  
Bruno closed his eyes again. "I tried to persuade them to go with us, but  
they didn't share my opinion. They even welcomed what the League was  
becoming."  
  
Ash looked back at the stars. There was even one that seemed to be  
shooting. He wished silently.  
  
Bruno suddenly stood up. "Well anyway, it was nice talking to you Ash.  
You're a nicer guy than I thought all these years. You probably deserved  
to beat me all those times we fought." He carefully picked his way over  
the roof to the side of the house. "Well I'll go on to check on how  
Junior's doing. I'll see you later."  
  
When he had gone, Ash also stood up. "Not likely." He grabbed his  
backpack and shrugged the straps over his shoulders. Then summoning his  
black cloak back over his body with a glow of dark energy, he concealed  
his face within the hood. He was leaving.  
  
"Come Pikachu," he said softly. "Time to save the world ... or destroy  
it."  
  
  
  
  
  
There was a small crowd of villagers gathering in the centre square of  
the town, preparing to watch a pokemon battle between a young,  
dark-haired girl in a light-green forest cloak, and a boy dressed in  
jeans, a white shirt and a maroon vest. On his head he wore a white  
bandage that wrapped his forehead, with his dark hair flopping over the  
front.  
  
Laselle smirked at the boy in front of her. "Come on, Junior *Trainer*!  
Let's see what you got. Go, Caterpie!" Her small green caterpillar pokemon  
jumped out of her backpack and over her head, where it rolled into a  
ball, then landed on the stone tiled floor.  
  
"Piii!" it said, blinking its dark eyes.  
  
Junior went to twist his hat around backwards, but then finding only a  
bandage on his head, he blushed. Then he narrowed his eyes and took a  
poke-ball from his belt, where it enlarged itself. "That's a laugh,  
*Lass*. Let's see how it goes against ..." He threw the ball out in front  
of him where it split open and with a flash of dark red light, a grey  
humaniod pokemon stood, flexing its arm. "Machop!" Junior continued.  
  
The blood rushed to Laselle's face. "Lass? No one calls me Lass!" She  
pointed. "Caterpie, String shot!"  
  
"Pii!" A long thin sticky stream of silk shot out of the pokemon's mouth  
and wrapped around the small Machop, who promptly tripped over.  
  
"Chop!" the machop said, as it squirmed on the ground trying to get up.  
  
"Machop!" Junior called. "Get up and Karate Chop it!"  
  
But before it could do that, Laselle shouted, "Tackle!" and the caterpie  
quickly leaped over, rolled into a ball and struck the machop on the  
head. The machop promptly fainted.  
  
The crowd of villagers watching clapped their hands. The caterpie must  
have been superbly trained in their eyes to defeat a stronger pokemon so  
easily.  
  
Junior had his mouth open in shock. "That-that's impossible! A caterpie  
can't beat a machop!"  
  
Laselle spun around in a little circle happily, then bragged. "Yeah, but  
my caterpie's special! She's gonna be my side-kick, just like Pikachu is  
to Ash! She's already saved my life once!"  
  
"Piii!" the caterpie chirped.  
  
"Ha ha," Junior laughed. "You're so dumb! Anyone can see that your  
caterpie is a boy!"  
  
"Really?" Laselle asked curiously. She ran over to the caterpie and  
lifted it up so she could look at its underside. "Oh, you're right. It  
is!"  
  
Junior laughed again.  
  
"I don't know what you're laughing at!" Laselle said crossly as she  
placed Caterpie back on the ground. "You owe me some money for beating  
you!"  
  
Junior stopped laughing and groaned.  
  
Then Bruno came running into the centre square. "So this is where you  
are!" he said to Junior, annoyed. "You're supposed to be in bed resting."  
  
"Um, Master Bruno, can I have some of my wages? I lost to Laselle in a  
bet."  
  
Bruno looked around at the crowd, then at the two pokemon on the ground,  
Laselle's caterpie and Junior's Machop which had fainted. He put two and  
two together. "You mean she beat you?" He smirked. "And against your  
favourite pokemon too! Maybe you let her win, because you like her," he  
whispered.  
  
Junior's face underneath his bandage turned red. "Do not! That caterpie  
is just strangely strong somehow!"  
  
And then, all of a sudden, a loud alarm bell began to ring. It was so   
loud it almost split Laselle's ear-drums. The crowds of people scattered  
and began to run.   
  
"Attack!" a sentry shouted from on top of one of the towers at the town  
walls. "League Army due south-west and approaching rapidly! All guards,  
archers and their pokemon to their positions, now!"  
  
"Uh, oh. Trouble," Bruno said worriedly. "Junior, you come with me to the  
top of the walls while-"  
  
"Hey," Laselle complained as she placed her pokemon back into her  
backpack. "What about me?"  
  
"You hide somewhere safe and-"  
  
"No way! I want to help too! Besides, my caterpie is strong, he even beat  
Junior's machop!"  
  
"No need to rub it in," Junior said grumpily, as he shot a thin maroon  
beam from his poke-ball and recalled his fainted pokemon.  
  
"Okay," Bruno said decisively. "There's no time for arguments. Come with  
us, but be careful okay? I don't know what Erika will do to me if I let  
anything happen to you."  
  
The three of them quickly ran to the town walls.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was half-past midnight, and the full moon shone down on the walled  
town preparing itself for battle. Numerous guards all ran along the top  
of the stone walls to assume position behind fortified blocks of stone.  
Poke-balls were strapped on and ready, as well as bows clutched in one   
arm and quivers of arrows worn on their backs.  
  
On top of the stone battlement nearest to the gates, a woman with short  
blue hair and dressed in light armour looked through a pair of binoculars  
to observe the army marching towards the town in the distance. Jenny was  
worried. They were just on the horizon and were quickly approaching  
despite their numbers. The front-line seemed to be made up of League Fire  
Trainers all riding ponyta's, the flame horse pokemon. In the back were  
the standard League soldiers and various wheeled vehicles. Hovering above  
them were numerous Charizard, the red flying dragons' roars audible even  
from this distance.  
  
"Captain Jenny," one of the guards said, who was looking through a  
telescope next to her. "I estimate their forces at just over half a  
thousand strong."  
  
Jenny put down her binoculars and ran a hand through her short hair.  
"This force is much larger than the one we fought off yesterday. I  
don't think we have much chance of fighting off a group of those  
numbers," she said gravely. "Begin evacuation of the women and children  
and any men too old to fight." She clenched her fist. "But, by God, the  
rest of us will fight, to the death if need be."  
  
The guard blinked, then saluted her. "It will be as you wish, Captain."  
He ran off to give out her orders.  
  
Then she spotted a tall muscular man, running along the stone walls  
toward them, with a boy and a girl following him.  
  
"Who is that man?" she asked another one of the guards. "And what are  
those children doing here? There is going to be a battle soon!"  
  
The guard squinted. "It looks like three of those travellers we admitted  
earlier to spend the night."  
  
"Travellers? How many of them did we let in? Are they trustworthy?" she  
asked immediately.  
  
"Along with those three, there were also two women and another man who  
accompanied them. The gate keeper thought them harmless enough, and the  
boy needed medical attention earlier. Joylene said they were okay."  
  
"Nurse Joy said they were okay? That's good enough for me then, I  
suppose."  
  
The three travellers finally reached them. Jenny thought that the muscled  
giant with brown spiky hair looked kind of cute. But then she squashed  
down the feminine feeling. At times like these, there was no place for  
things like that.  
  
"Unfortunately, it looks like Ash guessed right," the man said, staring  
at the frontlines of the army approaching them in the distance. "That  
League Force really was on their way here."  
  
"And what are you people doing?" Jenny asked. "You people should be  
evacuating with the rest of the villagers. This battle does not concern  
you." She looked pointedly at the young girl dressed in the green forest  
cloak, and the boy wearing a white bandage around his head. "Especially  
not children!"  
  
The man looked at her, his eyes beginning to glow a mahogany colour. Then  
he lifted his arms and a maroon-coloured Master's cloak materialised  
along his body.  
  
"Y-You're a Pokemon Master!" Jenny exclaimed, surprised. Then she  
suddenly ripped a bow from the hand of the nearest guard and nocked an  
arrow, aiming it at the man in the blink of an eye. "League scum!" she  
hissed.  
  
"No, no!" the man said, lifting his arms up to show that he meant no  
harm. "I'm with the Rebellion, not the League. We're here to help you."  
  
"Rebellion, League, you're the same thing!" Jenny accused, still pointing  
her bow at him.  
  
"Girl, put that away before you hurt someone," a throaty voice said from  
behind her. Startled, Jenny turned around, but was shocked when the bow  
was kicked out of her hands by a booted foot, to flip around high in the  
air.  
  
"Good kick, Misty," the throaty voice continued. Jenny saw that it was a  
stunning woman with long, dark-blue hair, dressed in a violet Master's  
cloak. She was holding two of the guard's immobile, each of them with an  
arm twisted around their backs and gritting their teeth painfully. It  
actually looked comical that a woman like that could overpower two of her  
highly trained men.  
  
The other red-haired woman next to her, quite beautiful as well, was   
also dressed in a Master's cloak. Although this one was a pure ocean   
blue in colour. There was a clack as the woman caught Jenny's bow in   
her hands and then placed it on a nearby stone bench.  
  
"More Pokemon Masters?" Jenny asked with contempt. "So they needed that   
many of you just to destroy our small town? A town that just wanted to   
be left alone?"  
  
The young girl who had arrived with the male Pokemon Master spoke up. "No  
Mistress! We only wish to help you! We could beat that army easily!"  
  
"We?" the boy interjected in a sarcastic tone at the girl.  
  
"Well, okay, them three and Ash! Where is he anyway?"  
  
But Jenny folded her arms and glared at the two woman Pokemon Masters.  
"How do I know you are telling the truth?"  
  
"Well if we were with the League, you'd already be dead," the red-haired  
woman said dryly.  
  
"True," Jenny considered. "And Joy did say you people were alright, and  
she is an excellent judge of character." She looked back at the  
approaching army and their fearsome pokemon who was now even closer. "But  
look at how many of them! I doubt with even three Pokemon Masters, we  
could fight off a force of that size."  
  
The blue-haired woman suddenly let go of the two guard's arms, who  
quickly stepped away from her. They even looked a little afraid, Jenny  
was amused to note.  
  
"Well now that we're here, it's possible to hold a stalemate," the woman  
said. "They won't be able to get in with us defending the walls and the  
sky."  
  
"A siege?" the muscular man asked. "But we don't have time for that! We  
have to get to the Cerulean ruins and destroy that tower! Where the hell  
is Ash? He should be here by now!"  
  
"Ash isn't here yet," the red-head said. Then her blue eyes widened  
in shock as she thought of something. "Damn! I'd bet anything that he's  
left to do it all by himself. He always was impulsive."  
  
"I left him on the roof of our guest house. He had his bag and Pikachu  
with him, now that I think about it," the man voiced.  
  
"Who is this Ash?" Jenny asked, curious. He sounded important. "Is he the  
sixth traveller we let in? A Pokemon Master too?"  
  
"Yes and yes," the blue haired woman replied. She suddenly laughed, a  
light tinkling sound. "I suppose we haven't introduced ourselves. How  
rude of us. Well I'm Duplica." She indicated herself. "This here girl  
worrying about her boyfriend is Misty." She pointed at the blue cloaked  
woman with red hair. "And that big hunk of meat is Bruno, while the two   
kids are Junior and Laselle respectively."  
  
"He's not my boyfriend," Misty said in annoyed tone. "But I have to   
catch up with him no matter what. I'll leave immediately. I'm sure you   
people here can manage a mere army."  
  
"And just why do you have to follow him and not any of us?" Duplica  
asked, with an amused look on her face, brown eyes shining.  
  
Misty turned, and covered her bright head with the hood of her cloak, her  
blue eyes lighting up the shadows. "I-I just have to." She began to run   
across the walls towards the stairs leading to the ground.  
  
Jenny looked back at the massive numbers of League Trainers headed their  
way. They were even closer now. "A mere army?"  
  
Duplica shrugged modestly, her blue hair sliding off her shoulders. "To  
us it is."  
  
  
  
  
  
A shadow sped through the forest, dodging trees easily as it flew along  
close to the ground. Leaves and other foliage was kicked up in a cloud  
behind it as the figure shot through almost like a small comet. Powerful  
winds created by the rapidly moving object shook the trees like a sonic  
boom, even shaking the ground.  
  
A small group of five League Trainers were on patrol a little to the west  
of the Cerulean ruins. Two of them were on horse-back carrying lances,  
while the other three were on foot. They were just about to cross the  
plains when they heard a sharp whistling sound.  
  
"What's that?" one of them asked.  
  
The ground began to shake underneath their feet. They all looked to the  
west towards the forest. The trees were vibrating violently, leaves   
falling to the ground. Something was coming this way. Fast.  
  
One of the trainers on horseback lowered his lance to the ready.  
"Whatever it is we can't let it through. Ponyta!" he ordered his horse.  
"Get ready to use Flamethrower!"  
  
The other trainer on horseback also prepared his ponyta, while the  
others on foot threw pokeballs on the ground to release their pokemon.  
  
"Charmeleon, I choose you! As soon as you see it, Fire Blast!"  
  
"Graveler, prepare to use Rock Throw!"  
  
"Rhyhorn! Get ready for Take Down!"  
  
And then the trees in the forest parted to release what looked like a  
huge fireball, but a fireball that was not made of fire but of pure black  
shadow. It sped towards them impossibly fast, dirt and foliage and grass  
being blown to the sides by the powerful wind it was making.  
  
"Now! Attack it!"  
  
The fire horses and the charmeleon emitted a firy aura then let loose  
streams of orange flames, while the graveler ripped huge chunks of stone  
from the ground and threw it. The rhyhorn began to charge.  
  
However the flames seemed to dissolve into the ball of shadow, while the  
rocks were shattered to sand. The rhyhorn tried to charge it head on, but  
was caught by the wind and blown away, but not before it crumbled to  
dust.  
  
"SHIT!" the League Trainers shouted simultaneously. "RUN!"  
  
The group jumped apart in two directions letting the fireball of shadow  
fly through them. But as the pure blackness passed them, crackling dark  
blue bolts of lightning emitted from it and electrocuted them all  
unconscious.  
  
  
  
  
  
When the missile of shadow reached the hilly and rocky land just outside  
of the Cerulean ruins, the blackness faded and revealed a man in a hooded  
black cloak, who suddenly landed on the ground and leaned sideways.  
  
Ash dug his boots into the earth and skidded more than two dozen feet  
across the rocky floor, creating a large dust storm in front of him  
before he stopped completely just on the rise of a rocky ledge. Down the  
ledge and before him a thousand feet away, in the centre of the ruins  
stood the massive dark, circular tower of stone. At the foot of the large  
structure were the old destroyed remains of Cerulean City, which seemed  
populated by a large army, thousands of tents scattered around, with just  
as many small points of lights that were created by the camp fires. He  
looked up at the tower and couldn't even see the top, it was so high.  
  
Despite that, he could see that the night sky above the tower had begun  
to swirl slowly in a dark-purple vortex, even the clouds being blown  
around it. They were getting ready to open the gate. He must not allow  
that to happen. He adjusted the straps of his backpack and stood up   
straight. "Pikachu ..." he said softly. "I choose you."  
  
"Pika!" Pikachu said, jumping out of his backpack and landing beside him  
on all fours, jagged tail in the air and pointed ears twitching. The  
black electric mouse's eyes were glowing a cobalt blue as he stared at  
the tower and the army before them.  
  
Ash and Pikachu studied them together.  
  
"Pika?"  
  
"That's right. Our ultimate attack. I hope you got enough rest, Pikachu,  
because we have to do this."  
  
"Chu," his pokemon said, determined, standing on his hind legs.  
  
The two of them stood on the ledge and began to concentrate their power.  
The moon's light began to cut out as more dark clouds formed above in the  
night sky and began to crackle with lightning. A blackness like no other  
descended around them, a glowing blue-black aura surrounding their  
bodies. A sharp wind began to blow in a spiral around them as if they  
were in the centre of a tornado. Soon the wind had grown so strong that  
the thousands of camp-fires at the base of the tower flickered out and  
died, further sinking the night into shadow. The army was startled and  
began to move as they noticed the large elemental disturbance on the  
cliffs to the west.  
  
Lightning crackled around Ash and Pikachu, the colour of midnight. The  
wind was blowing at full force now so that its screaming drowned out any  
noise in a hundred foot radius. The smell of ozone was thick in the air.  
Rocks and stones began to crumble from the ledge they were standing on.  
  
"Now Pikachu!" Ash shouted as loud as he could above the wind and lifted  
his arms. "DARK LIGHTNING APOC- arghhhhh!" He screamed as a knife of pure  
pain skewered in his head and he bent over, both of his hands covering  
his temples. Pikachu also squealed in pain, linked psychically to his  
master. Immediately, the massive amounts of elemental energy surrounding  
them cut out. The wind died down, and the clouds above with lightning  
emitting from them dissipated to nothingness.  
  
Then the pain disappeared just as abruptly as it had come. Ash stood up  
straight and turned around quickly, cloak flapping as he did so. Pikachu  
shook his head, eyes blinking and also went to see what had happened. A  
short distance behind them stood a slim figure, about as tall as him,  
dressed in a dark-purple cloak, the colour of twilight. A hand raised  
itself and removed its hood, freeing long night-black hair from its  
constraints. A beautiful, but sinister looking face was revealed, longish  
dark bangs slightly covering the figure's dark blue eyes, which were  
glowing a bright golden yellow.  
  
"Sabrina," Ash said softly. "What brings you here?"  
  
"I have orders to stop you," her flat emotionless voice replied. A slight  
breeze blew her black hair around her shoulders, revealing a long  
dark-green streak running the entire length of it.  
  
Ash powered up, his eyes beginning to glow golden as well. "You may have  
masked yourself from my senses when I was busy, but what makes you think  
you can stop me, now that I'm aware of you and can fight back?"  
  
"You have a weakness," she replied. "One that allows me to psychically  
take advantage of."  
  
Ash took a slight step backwards, doubts beginning to surface. She had,  
after all, hurt him quite badly with her attack, and he had thought he  
was immune to psychic blasts. "Sabrina, I don't want to hurt you. If you  
attack me psychically, there's no telling what my mind will do to you."  
  
Sabrina began to walk forward slowly a step at a time, glowing eyes  
unblinking, hair beginning to float unnaturally behind her. "I'm aware of  
the dangerous nature of accessing your dark mind. An inexperienced  
psychic without the knowledge would no doubt be destroyed forever.  
However, *I* have that knowledge. The knowledge to break you to my will."  
  
And with that said, Sabrina's eyes flared even brighter, and again, an  
excruciating pain exploded in Ash's mind, despite his defenses. He closed  
his eyes and screamed as he felt her will channel itself through his  
memories, accessing remembrances best forgotten. His private feelings  
were invaded as easily as if she held the key to do whatever she wished  
with his mind.  
  
The mental pain was too much and he felt himself losing consciousness.  
Faintly in the background he could hear Pikachu scream in pain also. Then  
more memories surfaced, twisted, unreal, violated.  
  
Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory?  
  
Ash held up his hand as he removed his red cap, letting out his spiky  
black hair. He put it on Pikachu's head who was crouched down at his  
feet. "No, no! I've decided. If I stayed as the League Champion, I  
would have to come back every tournament to uphold my title. And frankly,  
I think I've just discovered what I want most in life ... and  
surprisingly, it's not to be the Champ ... I-It's something else." He  
looked directly at Misty. "I know we haven't exactly been the perfect  
couple, you and I ... I, I ... always fighting and that, but we were a  
couple and it just wouldn't be the same without you ... so wha-what I'm  
trying to say is ... oh heck, wouldyouliketogowithme?"  
  
Misty's smirked at him. "Are you kidding? I've wasted most of my life  
going on your stupid journey! Why the HELL would I want to go with you  
now? You're nothing but a failure, Ash Ketchum, a FAILURE!"  
  
Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory?  
  
Ash looked into her eyes, his heart in his stomach and fluttering around  
like a butterfly. He took out a small jewel case. "Misty," he choked, and  
swallowed. "I-I know we're kind of young ... and you know ... but it's  
just that, you know ..." He paused again, tongue feeling as if  
it had been tied up. "Oh heck, wanna get married?" He quickly took out  
the ring from its box. Set in it was a perfect blue diamond which matched  
Misty's eyes completely.  
  
A tilting of her red lips. A mocking smile. Of hatred. "Are you kidding?"  
Misty screamed. "I hate you Ash! I HATE YOU!"  
  
Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory?  
  
Ash picked up his belt, holding his poke-balls, and strapped it on with a  
loud click. He picked up his thin brown, forest cloak, that his mom had  
given him back when he won his last badge and became a Pokemon Master,  
and slipped it on over his clothes. She said it made him look mysterious  
and handsome. Ash didn't care as long as it was warm. And that it had  
come from his mother herself. He left his trusty old red Pokemon League  
cap behind, though. It was a bit dirty and he hadn't got around to  
washing it yet.  
  
"So you're going then?" Misty said, with a twisted look on her beautiful  
face.  
  
"Of course I'm going," Ash replied, a little scared of the look she was  
giving him. It looked like she *wanted* him to leave.  
  
At his look, she folded her arms. "Well of course I want you to leave,  
stupid! Do whatever you want! I don't care!"  
  
"What-what's wrong with you?"  
  
"Nothing's wrong. Except that I let you in my life!" She suddenly walked  
over to the front door and opened it. At the door was a tall handsome man  
with spiky brown hair and slitted eyes. "Just get out and stay out," she  
said softly to him with no emotion any more, not even looking at him as  
she destroyed his life. She hugged the man at the door. "I've decided to  
marry Brock instead."  
  
"B-Brock?" Ash stepped backwards, shakily. His stomach had dropped out  
from beneath him and he felt like his heart was going to explode in his  
chest. He felt his eyes go moist with tears.  
  
Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory? It continued unrelentingly.  
  
"Misty," he groaned.  
  
Then everything was as black as the night.  
  
  
  
  
  
Sabrina looked a little sadly at the unconscious Pokemon Master and his  
pokemon. She wasn't as emotionless as people liked to believe. It was  
just how she naturally came across. She lifted her hands and replaced the  
hood over her head, carefully settling her hair back in place.  
  
A brown-cloaked man emerged vertically from the rock next to her, his  
rocky body slowly changing back to flesh.  
  
The man also looked at the fallen bodies. He chuckled then folded his  
arms, satisfied. "I told you it would work," he said softly.  
  
Then he walked over and kicked the fallen Ash in the side so hard, the  
black-cloaked figure almost rolled off the edge of the cliff. Sabrina  
nearly had to stop him rolling by use of her telekinesis.   
  
The brown-cloaked man growled low in his throat.   
  
"Feel my pain you bastard."  
  
  
  
*** End of Part 6  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Dark Lightning Apocalypse  
Type : Shadow / Electricity  
  
Ultimate attack. A beam of shadow electrical energy is fired in a  
sphere around Pikachu and its Master which is launched upwards. Then the  
lightning gathers enrgy from the clouds then falls back to earth falling  
in a surounding radius of 1 mile all around the point of activation.  
Anything within this radius is completely destroyed.  
  
(Think Ryoga's Shishi-Houkoden in Ranma 1/2 ^_^)  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Woah, the first sad ending? Well I had to split up the chapter as it was  
approaching 90 Kbs! And this seemed like the perfect place to do it.  
(Yes, I'm evil ^_^)  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey 


	7. Revelations

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 7 - Revelations  
  
  
It seemed like there was nothing but noise. People running this way and  
that within the besieged town, flying pokemon battling in the skies, the  
air swishing as hundreds of arrows were launched, the bone-jarring thumps  
of boulders striking against the stone walls and the shouting of hundreds  
of men.   
  
Bruno grunted and his huge muscles strained as he single-handedly kept  
the front gate from being battered down. He powered up again and  
continued to lean against the inside of the huge, thick steel doors that  
was the main entrance to the town. Even the large metal bars keeping the  
gates shut were bending as the massive thumping from the other side  
caused by battering rams, and even pokemon, continued to smash the gates  
repeatedly against his back.  
  
"Ugh, I can't hold the gates by myself!" He quickly took out two  
poke-balls from underneath his maroon cloak with one free hand, enlarged  
them, then threw them. "Go! Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan! Help me hold the gates  
closed!"  
  
From the balls, two brown fighting pokemon emerged, both largely  
humanoid, but one having massive arms and sporting fighting gloves, while  
the other had huge legs with spiky feet. The two pokemon quickly braced  
themselves against the door, Hitmonchan pushing at it with its arms,  
while Hitmonlee used its legs to fortify itself.  
  
Bruno sighed in relief as a large part of the load was taken for him, but   
he continued to keep the door shut. "I guess I wasn't as strong as I  
thought," he mumbled to himself as he flexed his muscles and further held  
the gates from the battering rams and from the sound of it, charging  
tauros, rhyhorns and rhydon.  
  
Meanwhile, in the air flapped one of the legendary pokemon, the cold  
artic-blue ice bird, Articuno. Except it wasn't the real Articuno, but  
Duplica who had shifted into its form to fight the flying charizard in  
the skies. She had already destroyed five of them but there were at least  
three of them still left, the red flying fire dragons trying to roast her  
alive with Flamethrower and Fire Blast attacks.  
  
Now, one of those charizards swooped at the majestic ice-bird and let out   
a long tongue of melting hot flame, but Duplica-Articuno looped the loop   
so it was behind it and then flapped her wings giving it a powerful   
Blizzard. Snow and ice shot out like hail and hammered at the charizard's   
back, sending it crashing to the ground in a huge fireball. The crashing   
pokemon took out at least a dozen League Trainers and soldiers on the   
ground outside the town walls.  
  
On the high stone walls and battlement of the town itself, dozens of   
archers continued to shoot wave after wave of fire-resistant arrows at   
the attacking League Trainers and men running across the field and trying  
to climb the stone barriers. Any that were in range, dropped like flies  
as arrow after arrow met their mark.  
  
Laselle sitting behind cover of a stone block in one of the battlements,  
peeked down the wall quickly, then ordered her caterpie to string-shot  
down half a dozen climbing attackers in the face. The men shouted in  
shock as they were blinded, then lost their grips on the stone and fell  
to the earth in bone-jarring thuds.  
  
Junior on another battlement ordered his graveler to throw rocks down at  
the climbing men, which worked just as successfully as Laselle's tactics.  
  
On top of the front gate, Captain Jenny gave a shout, and then her guards  
tipped over pots of boiling oil and pitch on the men trying to break  
through with a battering ram along with their charging pokemon. Screams  
of pain arose as they were burned alive.  
  
However, it was not all going in their favour. More and more archers on  
the walls were being caught by fireballs from the League's charmeleon,  
while the surviving charizards, when left unattended by Duplica, made  
devastating dives on men within the actual settlement and setting houses   
on fire.  
  
Suddenly there was a blaring of horns outside and the noise of the battle  
quieted somewhat. Jenny looked to see two lightly armoured figures on  
horse-back, their mounts Rapidashs, out in front and out of range  
of the archers. They both appeared to be the ones who had the authority,  
probably the actual generals of the League army. One seemed to be a man  
with aqua blue hair worn short, while the other was a woman, wearing her  
long blonde hair in a high ponytail.  
  
"Surrender!" the man said, using a horn that amplified his voice. The  
voice was low and scratchy, although that could have been the fault of  
the amplification.  
  
The woman had her own horn to shout out of. "Surrender and we will give  
you all painless deaths!"  
  
"Never!" Jenny shouted back, her voice carrying clearly to them despite  
having no way of amplifying her voice. She directed another pouring of  
boiling oil on the unfortunate men ordered to break through the gates.  
"We will fight to the death!"  
  
"So be it!" the male general shouted. "Now you shall all face the Master  
Pokemon of Dragons! Dragonight!" he shouted, his irritating voice  
carrying loudly. "Destroy them!"  
  
And then the full moon seemed to get blocked by something.   
  
Something huge.  
  
Jenny crossed herself as she watched the impossibly large flying black  
dragon swoop down from the night sky in the horizon, getting closer by  
the minute. It seemed to be at least over a hundred feet long and a third  
of that wide. Its wing-span was double its length and the ground trembled  
and the fires were blown back as its massive wings beat hard, flying  
toward them. It roared and even at that distance, it was so loud, Jenny  
could hear numerous glass windows in the houses below and behind her,  
within the town, shatter.  
  
She swallowed. "May the spirits have mercy on us all."  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty sped along quickly though the lightly forested area, land surfing  
on her black star pokemon, to the east and to the dark tower in the  
Cerulean ruins. Mostly she just followed Ash's tracks. It seemed that he  
had created a wide trench of dirt in his flight to the ruins. She  
wondered what he had done to cause that. She was still a little afraid of  
the obvious power that he was capable of, but it did make her feel a   
little easier that he was so strong that he probably didn't need her   
help. But the fear was still there nonetheless. Just what had happened to   
change him like that? And even Pikachu? Something that happened in the   
wars, just like her? But his changes seemed to be much more dramatic than   
any of the other Masters.  
  
She banked sideways dodging yet another tree as she followed the trail  
onwards and continued to worry. She knew she shouldn't be worrying this  
badly about him, but she couldn't help it. Didn't she hate him? It seemed  
that she had lived with that hate for five long years. It was what kept  
her alive, kept her spirit clinging to life, kept her from giving up.  
Otherwise Ash would have won. But when she had met him again, he didn't  
seem to be the demon that she had built him up in her mind. For all of  
his hardness, there was still more than a few glimpses that he was the  
same caring boy she had met back in that long day ago, fishing. Maybe  
even some signs that he still cared for her? But no, she was probably  
imagining it. Wishful thinking? But what did she wish for?  
  
And then the trail led out of the forest and on to some grassy plains.  
Misty saw some men and their pokemon lying unconscious and maybe even  
dead, on the ground to the sides of the trench she was following. Their  
bodies were even still crackling with a dark blue electricity, still  
charged by whatever Ash had hit them with.  
  
She leaned forward and put on more speed across the plains. In front of  
her, the tower stood up high and ominous. Around the top of it, clouds  
and energy swirled as if it was a whirlpool in the sky. It looked like  
the gate was ready to open. She shivered, and not from the cold wind that  
blew past her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Butch and Cassidy watched atop their fire horse mounts on the grassy  
plains as Dragonight stomped around on its hind legs, in the middle of  
the walled town, breathing flames of black fire everywhere. Their army  
settled back to watch the fun as the enemy archers on the walls turned  
around to shoot at the hundred foot tall dragon, but failed to even prick  
the black scaly skin with their puny arrows. Instead, more than a few of  
them were burned alive as the dragon's red glowing eyes looked irritated  
and shot a huge gust of dark flame from its fanged mouth, totally  
incinerating the poor men and melting huge sections of the stone walls  
and battlements.  
  
Even the small Articuno - they were wondering how a town like this could  
get a pokemon of that power - in contrast to the large black dragon was  
totally ineffective in its attempts to ice beam and blizzard it.  
Dragonight just roared in anger and tried to swat it with its clawed  
forearms like an insect, but the agile blue bird dodged as it flew around  
darting in-between attempted strikes, ice shards floating away from its  
tail lighting up like a rainbow from the light of the fires.  
  
"I'd give them another half an hour before the town is totally  
destroyed," Butch said, as he adjusted his steel gauntlets.  
  
Cassidy laughed with a toss of her blonde ponytail. Her purple eyes  
gleamed malevolently. "I'm glad they chose the hard way. It's always fun  
watching Dragonight destroy helpless people."  
  
Suddenly there was two metallic thumps from behind them. Cassidy turned  
to see that two of their personal guards dressed in steel armour, had  
fallen over, each with a dart embedded in their exposed necks.  
  
"Attack!" Butch shouted, drawing his sword with one hand and wheeling his  
horse around with the other. "From behind!"  
  
Cassidy did the same, drawing her short sword, but also throwing a  
poke-ball from underneath her chain-mail vest. "Go Raticate!"  
  
The ball opened in a flash of dark light, revealing an oversized, brown  
rat pokemon with sharp fangs for teeth. It leaped around in front of  
their horses on the grass, ready to protect its masters.  
  
Then more of their guards fell down with darts in their necks.  
  
"Cowards!" Butch hissed. "Show yourselves!"  
  
Suddenly, out of some tall grass, a large white panther-like pokemon  
sprung out with a feral hiss and attacked their raticate. It was a  
somehow, familiar looking persian with a red jewel in its forehead. The  
raticate squealed, caught by surprise, and tried to leap away, but the  
large cat pokemon jumped on it, slashing its back open with its sharp  
claws, then bit it in the neck quickly, killing it. Then it jumped back  
into the grass before Butch and Cassidy could even react.  
  
"Rapidash, Fire Spin!" Cassidy shouted angrily. Her mount neighed, then  
shot a spiralling stream of fire at the grass which disintegrated a huge  
clump of dry foliage. But when the smoke cleared, the cat wasn't there  
anymore.  
  
"Who are you?" Butch asked loudly. "Show yourselves!" he repeated.  
  
"If you insist," a low feminine voice voiced that also, somehow, sounded  
familiar.  
  
Then from the long grasses on each side of them emerged two dark figures  
dressed in black clothing. The one on their left was a slim woman dressed  
in long baggy trousers and a short dark tank-top open at the belly. Her  
long red hair was worn in a ponytail similar to Cassidy's own, except it  
was worn lower at the neck. The one on the right was an athletic looking  
man, who was also wearing dark baggy trousers, but wearing a long sleeved   
black shirt covering his lightly muscled chest. Both of them wore a  
ninja's mask to cover the lower half of their faces and also their hair,  
leaving only their narrowed eyes visible. They both looked unarmed save  
for the blowpipe the woman held in one hand.  
  
"You always did like to copy my style," the woman said, feeling her long  
red ponytail with her free hand, her sky blue eyes glowing as they  
reflected the light of the burning town in front of them.  
  
"Prepare for annihilation," the man said in a soft voice. His own grass  
green eyes were also reflecting the light of the fires. "Butch, Cassidy,  
you two outlaws are wanted dead or alive by the Fuchsia state government  
for crimes against the people." He lifted his arms in a fighting stance.  
"And now we mean to collect!"  
  
"Wow, James!" the red haired woman said. "You said that perfectly!"  
  
"Of course," the man said proudly.  
  
Cassidy laughed as she lifted her sword ready atop her mount. "Jessie and  
James?" She looked at the Persian which had now reappeared from the  
grasses in front of them. "And Meowth? Well you certainly have changed  
since the fall of Team Rocket!"  
  
Butch chuckled. "And mercenaries now, I see!" He also lifted his sword.  
"But I'm afraid that us two generals for this Pokemon League army aren't  
available for collection. Guards, kill them!" he ordered. The remainder  
of their guards rushed forward, with their own broad swords to the ready.  
  
But they could only watch in shock as Jessie threw her blowpipe into the  
throat of one of the soldiers, while James threw several small daggers  
right through the rest of the soldier's breast plates and into their  
hearts, killing them.  
  
The four soldiers dropped down to the ground, lifeless.  
  
"And now for the rematch," Jessie said in an evil tone as she, James  
and Persian began to step closer in slow but sure movements.  
  
Butch and Cassidy, atop their Rapidash, prepared to fight silently. It  
was a long time since they had felt fear touch them with its icy hand.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was absolute chaos within the town. With each step the massive black  
dragon took, the ground shook furiously. Dozens of houses were on fire  
and guards and people screamed as they desperately tried to run away.  
Whenever the dragonite spotted a human out in the open, it opened its  
mouth and roared, before exhaling a huge explosive tongue of melting hot  
flame. Any unfortunate person within range wasn't set on fire, but was  
instead, instantly turned into ashes. Those even more unfortunate that  
were caught in front of the dragon as it walked forward on immense clawed  
feet were hopelessly trampled to liquefied sticky jelly stuck to the  
crumbled pavement.  
  
Bruno crouched behind a semi-destroyed, burning house waiting for just  
the right moment, as the dragonite walked past with huge earth-shaking  
steps. Then as the articuno again tried to attack, distracting it and  
keeping it still for a few seconds - the majestic ice bird flying around  
its head shooting ice beams and blizzards - Bruno quickly jumped out from  
his hiding spot and ran towards its legs. He dodged the huge, long black  
pointed tail as it swayed from side to side knocking over buildings with  
each swing, until he finally reached its bottom left, clawed foot.  
  
Then, summoning his power over strength and leaning backward, his aura  
glowing a maroon colour over his cloak, he screamed as he swung forward  
with a massive, double-fisted punch into its Archilles' heel. "Take this  
you overgrown son of a dratini!"  
  
There was a tremendous cracking noise as the tendon broke, and the  
dragonite screeched an ear-splitting roar. Bruno quickly rolled away as  
the massive creature lost its balance, flapping its powerful wings wildly  
and began to tip over on to its right side. It almost recovered but an  
ice-beam shot by the articuno into its right eye, tipped the scales out  
of balance, and it fell into the largest building in the town, the   
multi-levelled Town Hall. Rather than knock the building over, it smashed  
through its stone walls and roof, and fell half inside it creating a  
small earthquake.  
  
But it wasn't even fazed as it stood up again, and screamed an  
animalistic cry of rage, claws slashing everywhere and flames emitting  
from its mouth and nostrils. It picked up a large section of a stone wall  
in its forearm and threw it in anger. Unfortunately for Bruno, the  
boulder crashed into a house next to him and a large piece of stone  
shrapnel hammered into his chest, making him fly backwards about a dozen  
feet next to another half-destroyed building, into some debris of fallen  
lumber and stones. His arm and chest was in a fire of pain and he blacked  
out.  
  
When he awoke a few minutes later, he found a young woman dressed in a  
dirty white dress with medium length, dark red hair pulled in a loose  
ponytail pulling pieces of rock and other wood off his chest that he had  
been covered in. He suddenly realised it was the nurse, who had admitted  
them into the town earlier in the night.  
  
"That was pretty stupid," she admonished him, her light blue eyes  
scolding as she continued to remove the heavy stones. "Taking on a  
creature more than ten times your size with your bare fists."  
  
From this close distance, he realised that she was younger than she had  
looked from further away. He guessed at around seventeen, a couple of  
years older than Laselle and Junior. "Nurse Joy was it?" He went to pull  
a rock off his stomach than grunted in pain. It felt like his arm was  
broken, and even a couple of ribs.  
  
She pulled it off for him and then seemed to study his arm and chest.  
"That's right. But call me Joylene. Nurse Joy is just my title." Then she  
suddenly grasped his arm and his chest with each of her hands. Her blue  
eyes seemed to glow and her hands felt like they were heating up.  
Amazingly, the intense pain in his arm and chest seemed to dissipate,  
until it was only a dull throb.  
  
Joylene stood up and wiped a thin line of sweat from her brow. "Let's go.  
I'll take you to where the survivors are regrouping." She began to run  
off, expecting him to follow.  
  
Bruno stood up and dusted his cloak off. He felt much better, although  
his arm was still tender. Thank God for healers, he thought, as he  
quickly jogged after her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Duplica flapped her icy wings one last time as she descended to where the  
survivors seemed to gather, in the far corner of the town. She shifted  
back into human form, and landed with a thump, her violet cloak drifting  
around her before it settled down. Captain Jenny had a shocked look on  
her face that was almost priceless as she walked up to them. The captain  
still had not gotten used to Duplica's amazing metamorphosis abilities.  
  
Aside from Captain Jenny huddling behind the cover of a collapsed stone  
building, there was also Bruno, who seemed to be nursing an injured arm,  
as well as Junior and Laselle, with her caterpie riding in her backpack.  
Next to them stood the red-haired Nurse Joy and also a couple of other  
guards and archers.  
  
"That oversized dragonite is too strong," Duplica said, shrugging her  
shoulders. "We have no choice but to retreat."  
  
Captain Jenny closed her open mouth and got a stubborn look on her face.  
"I refuse to stop fighting! I don't care if I die, it was my duty as the  
captain of the guard to protect this settlement at all costs!"  
  
"Don't be stupid!" Bruno hissed. "Dying would be pointless. Don't think  
of it as retreating, but living to fight another day!"  
  
"He's right," the nurse agreed. "We should escape now while we are still  
alive."  
  
"I don't care!" Jenny ripped a poke-ball out from underneath her armour  
and released her fire dog pokemon. "Growlithe and I will attack it  
ourselves if we have to!" But her growlithe took one look at the massive  
black dragon from around the corner, and whimpered, running back between  
her legs.  
  
"I agree with the Masters and Nurse Joy, Captain!" one of the guards  
said. "That thing is unstoppable to the likes of us. We had a small  
enough chance against that army as it was, but with that ... thing ...  
that chance went up in smoke."  
  
"See, at least your men are thinking with their heads!" Duplica said,  
causing the guard to blush underneath his helmet. "Now let's take the  
emergency escape route at the back wall that the women, children and  
elderly took earlier."  
  
"I-I suppose so," Jenny said sadly, brushing away a lock of blue hair  
that had fallen into her eye. Then she stood up, determined as she  
recalled her pokemon back into its ball and placed it on her belt. "Okay,  
just follow me!"  
  
The small group of people quickly and silently ran across town towards  
the secret exit. They were careful not to get noticed by the dragonite   
which was still destroying the rest of the buildings in the centre of   
the settlement with bursts of flame and swipes of its powerful claws,   
tail and wings.  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty stood on the cliffs before the massive tower, her hands at her  
sides to keep the wind from blowing her cloak violently, while her long  
red hair didn't have that protection and was free to float around behind  
her. The weather had begun to grow even worse. At the foot of the  
structure and among the ruins of her old home-town city of Cerulean, were  
camped a large army.   
  
A tear ran down cheek, but was quickly blown away by the strong wind. If  
she looked carefully, she could still make out the remains of a couple  
ruined walls among the ruins, which was probably part of their old gym.  
The Waterflowers of Cerulean City, she and her sisters were called. But  
mostly her sisters were called that. She had been the undisputed runt of  
the litter, along with her twin sister, Valdera, or Vally which was how  
she was called back then. Before she disappeared and was thought dead.  
But she, Misty, was overall the shortest and the most unattractive, at  
least in her opinion. But she had ended up a late bloomer and had finally  
grown into a woman during her travels with Ash. If only her sisters could  
see her now. But she didn't know whatever became of them after the wars.  
Except for Valdera of course.  
  
And where was Ash now? She looked up at the tall tower but couldn't even  
see the top of it at this angle. Nothing but the dark purple night sky as  
it swirled around in a vortex. Was Ash up there? She looked at the ground  
behind her where the trail she was following ended. There also seemed to  
be signs of some sort of tornado or something, with the land around her  
swept bare in a circular shape. She, herself, was standing in its centre.  
  
She knelt down and felt the ground. Ash had lain here not that long ago.  
She could sense his essence. What had happened? Was he beaten? Her blue  
eyes lit up with determination as she stood up to stare at the tower. The  
only thing she knew was that if Ash was in there, she was going to get  
him out.  
  
"Hello, Misty," a soft but deep voice said from behind her. It was  
strangely familiar to her.  
  
She turned around with a whip of her mantle to see a tall, muscular man  
in a hooded, brown Master's cloak. The man removed his hood that was  
keeping his face in shadow, to reveal brown spiky hair, worn longer and  
looser, some falling over his slitted narrow eyes. His face held a rugged  
handsomeness to it that was also very familiar.  
  
"B-Brock?" Misty said, her hand going to her mouth in shock. Then she  
laughed in happiness as she ran forward, arms outstretched. "You're  
alive! We thought you were dead! Killed by Lord Garick!"  
  
But just when she was about to reach him to give him a tight hug, his  
slitted eyes glowed an ugly brown. "S-Stay away from me!" he shouted as  
he lifted his arm. His arm blurred then formed itself into a narrow  
spear of rock in the blink of an eye.   
  
Misty screamed in pain as he quickly stabbed it into her side, and  
through her body, as she fell on top of him. She could feel a warmth  
spread down her waist and along her leg that was her blood escaping.  
  
Brock pushed her away and jerked the spear of stone from her body in a  
quick movement, spraying her blood on his face. Misty fell down to her  
knees on the ground, clutching her wounded side tightly, red hair splayed  
around her shoulders. Her eyes began to water as she lifted her gaze at  
him. He wore an unrepentant look on his familiar face, which seemed to be  
not so familiar any more. It was like a stranger.  
  
"W-Why?" was all she could ask, before she fell over forwards,  
unconscious.  
  
Brock walked over and picked her up in his arms, strangely gentle.  
He smoothed a lock of her red hair away from her cheek and wiped a tear  
from her closed eye with a finger.  
  
"Because I hate you."  
  
  
  
  
  
As consciousness slowly returned to Misty, she could feel someone holding  
her up by the arms from behind her. Her chest and stomach were in pain,  
but she noticed that she had a tight bandage wrapped around her,  
underneath her cloak. Where was Ash? Was he okay? Where was she? Then it  
all came back to her. Brock.  
  
She immediately stood up under her own power and pushed away whoever it  
was that was holding her. She opened her eyes and looked around herself.  
The room she was in was circular and a greyish black in colour as the  
walls and the roof were completely made of stone. Aside from a few tables  
with papers on them and some other grey rugs decorating the walls, and  
candles to light up the room, it was largely bare. Underneath her feet  
was the beginnings of a red rug, the only bright colour in sight, which  
continued out in front of her until it stopped before an elevated throne.  
The throne was black in colour and looked to be fit for a king. Beside  
the throne and to the left stood Brock, still dressed in his brown cloak,  
but with his hood thrown back behind his head.  
  
On the throne itself resided a figure who seemed to be of Ash's size,  
about six feet tall, and of similar build. It was wearing a grey Master's  
cloak, but had the hood over its head, keeping its face in shadow. Two  
bright points of red light that were its eyes gleamed at her from within  
the shadowy depths. It was the League Master himself. Lord Garick. Gary.  
And Ash's old rival from a decade ago.  
  
Misty looked behind her and saw that the person who had been holding her  
up was none other than Sabrina, the Psychic Master. She looked largely  
the same as she had ten years ago when she and Ash had first met her. The   
only major difference were that her bangs were a bit longer covering her   
dark blue eyes slightly more, and that she was dressed in the uniform of   
a Pokemon Master just like everyone else in the room. Her cloak was the   
dark blue-purple of twilight, which matched her sinister eyes. Her face  
was serious, emotionless.  
  
"Nice of you to wake up at just the right time," Brock said, folding his  
arms. He seemed taller and larger than when she had last seen him, being  
at least six feet seven, she guessed, and probably about two hundred and  
fifty pounds.  
  
"Brock ..." she whispered, her voice hoarse. "What happened to you? How  
could you betray us like this?"  
  
"Betray?" Brock laughed as if she had said a particularly funny joke. "I  
haven't betrayed anyone. I never even left the League to join the  
so-called Rebellion in the first place."  
  
"Y-You were a double agent?"  
  
"Obviously," he replied.  
  
Misty lowered her head. Then she quickly lifted her arm and launched an  
ice beam at him, the cold blue energy leaving her fist like a bullet.  
"How could you? We trusted you! We were childhood friends!"  
  
Brock however just calmly lifted his arm, which metamorphisised itself  
into a shield of rock. The ice shattered against it into harmless shards  
and melted. He lowered his arm again, shifting back to normal, and nodded  
to Sabrina.  
  
Immediately her mind was deluged in pain as Sabrina sent her a psychic  
blast. It went on for at least half a minute before it subsided and Misty  
found herself kneeling on the ground, and covering her head.  
  
She lowered her arms and stood up again, unafraid, unwilling to show any  
sign of weakness. "Where is Ash?" she asked flatly.  
  
Brock smiled, his thin lips tilting, as he folded his thick arms again.  
"Dead."  
  
A sudden cold and artic aura surrounded Misty's form, so cold, Sabrina  
was startled and stepped backward from the biting air. Misty's red hair  
and the folds of her blue cloak began to float and her eyes flared,  
glowing brightly, the colour of frozen ice. "You LIE!" she screamed, her  
voice cracking in pain. She lifted her arms and shot a massive wave of  
liquid blue energy vertically upwards. The stone roof shattered and  
immediately a strong wind began to blow inside. The startling darkness   
of the twisting void above them seemed to grow as cold elemental energy  
blasted the air around them.  
  
And then her aura suddenly winked out and she collapsed to her knees  
again, hands covering her face and sobbing.  
  
"It's not a lie," Brock said, looking unmercifully at the weeping woman.  
"Well, only half a lie anyway." He nodded to Sabrina.  
  
Sabrina's eyes began to glow golden as she accessed her power, and then a  
slim, dark figure in a hooded black cloak stepped out from behind the  
right side of the throne. On his shoulder, sat a black pikachu with  
glowing red eyes.  
  
Misty stopped sobbing and looked up. "Ash!" she cried in immense relief.  
She stood up and began to run towards him, but stopped halfway when the   
figure in the black cloak did not acknowledge her at all, but stayed   
silent. Two crimson eyes flared within the hood, glowing unemotionally.  
  
"Ash?" she said hesitantly. The figure remained silent, unmoving, even  
Pikachu, who was staring at nothing. "What have you done to him?"  
  
Brock turned and smiled at the still and silent Ash. "Nothing but  
basically regressed him back to the emotional state that he was in about  
four or so years ago. His pokemon is like that because it is psychically  
linked to its master and feels whatever its master feels. Unfortunately  
for Pikachu."  
  
"What do you mean?" Misty asked softly, staring at Ash with dread.  
  
"Well of course, he wasn't quite this bad. But he was pretty much  
emotionless. In this state he is quite easy to control," Brock stated.  
"And we plan to use him to help us open up the gates to the Astral  
Plane. The League shall free the Forbidden, the shadow pokemon banished  
to the plains of the dead, and the weak shall be wiped out to clean this  
world's slate and begin anew."  
  
Misty turned back to him, blue eyes wide. "W-Why? Why are you doing this?  
Do you people hate this world so much? Haven't you learned what happened  
the last time people tried to control the Forbidden in their bid to rule  
the world?"  
  
"Team Rocket were incompetent and paid the price of destruction," Brock  
replied. "They had no way of controlling the Forbidden. However, we do."  
He nodded at Sabrina. "Have Ashura blow the roof off completely. The moon  
is in phase. It is time."  
  
Sabrina complied, and Ash seemed to float forward to the centre of the  
room, his booted feet hovering about two inches from the ground. His eyes  
flared the colour of blood and a dark aura built around him briefly. Then  
it expanded abruptly with a loud explosion, blowing away the stone walls  
and the roof.  
  
The violent and cold wind immediately rushed in to fill the space and the  
room was wiped clean of all things, save for the throne, and the five  
Pokemon Masters.  
  
Directly above them was the swirling dark-purple of the large vortex  
which was wider than the tower itself in diameter. If it descended, it  
was big enough to swallow the tower whole.  
  
The figure on the throne, who was all this time sitting silently and  
watching, suddenly stood up, raising his arms. Misty saw that his left  
hand was the colour of his wildly flapping grey cloak and didn't seem  
like a human hand, but more like a three fingered claw with sharply  
curved nails. His hood, strangely, did not blow off from his head despite  
the strong winds, so his face was still kept in shadow.  
  
"Now!" the League Master growled in an animal tone, and his form began to  
glow a bright golden colour. An aura of psychic energy.  
  
The vortex above them seemed to widen and a horrible screaming began to  
leak through. The screaming of untold numbers of tormented souls. Misty  
shrank back and began to shiver, and not from the cold, as she held her  
cloak together to keep its folds from blowing about.  
  
Then the golden power unleashed by the grey cloaked figure split into  
three directions. One thick tendril of energy surged upwards towards the  
vortex, while the other two tendrils headed west and south-west  
respectively, shooting into the horizon of the night sky until they could  
no longer be seen. And then there was a momentary flash of light that  
seemed to brighten the whole night sky for a second, so that it almost   
seemed like day.  
  
The tormented screaming coming from the dark purple vortex was louder now  
as it expanded and swirled ever so faster. And then came the sound of the  
flapping of wings. Thousands of wings. And animal shrieks that sounded  
bird-like in nature but were obviously not birds.  
  
Misty began to access her power. She couldn't allow them to do this! She  
desperately tried to absorb the energies from the moisture around her as  
what she could give out internally was not enough.  
  
Brock noticed her and shook his head, his brown hair and cloak being  
tossed powerfully around in the wind. "No, no, Misty!" he shouted above  
screeching of the air and the screams from the vortex. "I did not bring  
you up here so that you could interfere!"  
  
Misty continued to power herself up, the cold aura around her body  
beginning to give off an icy steam. "Then why did you bring me? Some sort  
of sadistic amusement so that you could gloat?"  
  
"For this to be my finest moment, in the destruction of the world, I  
would like to see you die!"  
  
"But why?" she cried, not understanding. "Why do you hate the world? Why  
do you hate me so much?"  
  
An ugly brown aura began to emit from Brock's body and his face was  
screwed up in pain. "Because I loved you! LOVED YOU!"  
  
Misty gasped in utter shock. She looked at Ash who was still standing  
silently, with Pikachu on his shoulder, his black cloak floating around  
his body in the air.  
  
"But it was always Ash! ASH!" he screamed, his voice in utter torment.  
"Even after all I've done! You still love him don't you? DON'T YOU?" he  
accused above the wind. "Even now I can see the love in your eyes when  
you look at him! Well now you DIE! And not from me, but from your lover's  
hands himself! What dramatic irony!" he choked. "Ashura, KILL HER!"  
  
Misty took more steps backward as Ash suddenly turned towards her, his  
red eyes gleaming malevolently. Even Pikachu on his shoulder seemed to  
glare at her.  
  
"No, Ash," she mouthed desperately. "Ash, don't listen to him!"  
  
But Ash was silent as his cloaked body began to emit a blue-black aura of  
power. He lifted his right arm and Pikachu ran along it and shifted into  
his razor sharp black katana blade. Then he caught the sword and spun the  
hilt around his right hand twice, before stopping it abruptly and jerking  
his arm backwards so that he held it behind his back. He bent his knees  
and prepared to strike.  
  
In panic, Misty quickly ripped Starmos off her cloak and threw it on the  
ground behind her where it enlarged into her flying star pokemon.  
"Starmos, go!" she shouted, as she jumped on top of it. Starmos complied  
and they quickly flew off the edge of the tower and descended. The wind  
was strong, but she managed to ride it out as she glided desperately  
away.  
  
Behind her, Ash crouched lower and formed a small black disc of shadow  
underneath his feet. Then he stood up, and also took to the air, the disc  
of shadow lifting him. He flew off after her silently, the sword held to  
his side clutched in both of his hands.  
  
Thunder seemed to rumble in the night sky. The weather was turning even  
more violent. Rain began to fall.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a match-up of rivals. Jessie against Cassidy, the two women  
fighting it out, Cassidy long since having taken off her armour so she  
could fight more freely, while James was against Butch, who had also  
relieved himself of his heavier clothing. Everyone was on foot now,  
fighting on the grassy plains, since Jessie and James' Persian had  
hamstrung their horses and was now being kept busy keeping Butch and  
Cassidy's men from interfering.  
  
Cassidy swung her thick sword at Jessie over and over again, while Jessie  
gave ground blocking each thrust with her sai daggers, one in each hand.  
  
"I must say that you three have certainly grown from being a joke,"  
Cassidy muttered between thrusts, the light rain wetting her face and  
blonde hair.  
  
Jessie blocked it with one of her daggers, then thrusted back with the  
other, which was blocked by Cassidy. "A joke?" she interjected, blue eyes  
blinking from above her face mask, her tone going higher. "A joke is how  
you always copy my style! But you'll never match up to my beauty!"  
  
Cassidy screamed as she swung her sword that would have dismembered  
Jessie right through the middle if it had connected. "How dare you!"  
  
Meanwhile, James and Butch also fought, even with corresponding weapons,  
Butch with a long broadsword, while James matched up with twin,  
three-pronged knives.  
  
Butch side-stepped looking for an opening. His brown eyes were mocking as  
he flipped his head once to remove a strand of aqua hair that had fallen  
in his face. "Still cross-dressing, James?" he asked in his scratchy  
voice.  
  
James spun his daggers around his hands in a fancy manoeuvre. "Why? Do  
you want me to?" he replied with a devilish look in his emerald green  
eyes. "Do you like my bod, Butchy boy?"  
  
"Argh!" Butch yelled as he charged, swinging his sword wildly.  
  
"I see I hit a nerve," James confirmed, as he did several backward  
hand-flips away.  
  
And then they were interrupted as the earth began to shake wildly. The  
army watching the black dragon demolish the town was startled. A high  
pitched screaming sound began to fill the air.  
  
"What's that?" Jessie exclaimed, pointing at the night sky. It looked  
like two shooting stars flying towards them on a head-on collision. The  
first star was a bright glowing blue while the other, which was much  
larger and following it, was a shadowy blue-black.  
  
"Meteors!" James wailed. "We're all going to die!"  
  
Jessie sighed as she held her forehead. "Shut up James!"  
  
When the blue fireball got closer, Persian hissed. "That's not a meteor!  
That's the twerp's girlfriend!"  
  
The Water Master flew past over their heads riding her black star  
pokemon, the icy wind created in her wake almost blowing everyone over.  
Then the larger comet of shadow approached, following her. The ground  
began to shake even harder as if it were the beginning of an earthquake.   
But unlike the blue cloaked woman who became visible as she neared them,   
the aura of darkness created by the comet stayed black and impenetrable.  
  
Then dark blue electricity began to crackle around the black comet and it  
suddenly shot a large bolt of lightning over their heads and at the woman  
it was chasing. The projectile of electricity just managed to strike her  
slightly on the side and she screamed as she began to descend over the  
forest to the south, trailing icy blue energy.  
  
Butch began to panic, thinking that the black comet was after them next.  
"Guards! Shoot that thing down!"  
  
"Yes Sir!" The guards stopped trying to kill the agile Persian and  
directed their pokemon to attack the black comet. "Arcanine, Charmeleon,  
Magmar, combined Fire Blast!"  
  
Several streams of exploding red fire flew up into the sky, so powerful  
the rain wasn't affecting them, but when they reached the comet, they  
just seemed to be dissolved into it. The air was screaming louder now as  
it approached.  
  
"What the hell?" Butch shouted.  
  
Then the comet did dive down as it flew over them, right into a large  
cluster of League Trainers and soldiers. There was a loud explosion as  
dirt, grass, and dead men went flying everywhere like broken shrapnel.  
  
Jessie coughed from all the dirt, and when it cleared, she saw a  
black-cloaked figure with red eyes and holding a sword, standing in the  
middle of a huge, wide crater where a large portion of the League army  
had just been standing. "It's the twerp himself!" Jessie said, a little  
afraid. He was standing between them and the rest of League army in front  
of the town and the huge dragonite.  
  
Cassidy waved the dust away from her eyes and fell backward. "You mean  
that Ash boy you were all chasing around years ago? He just destroyed a  
quarter of our army!"  
  
"I think you annoyed him," James said, frightened, trying to hide behind  
Jessie and holding her shoulders.  
  
"Destroy him!" Butch screamed loudly.  
  
The army and their pokemon behind Ash began to shout as they charged.   
The battle cries of hundreds of men rang loud in the air. The ground  
trembled as more than a thousand feet trampled across the land.  
  
Ash's eyes flashed red and a midnight black aura of power began to rise  
around his body as he rapidly turned around, cloak flapping, to face the   
charging army. He began to hover slightly in the air.  
  
"I think that was a mistake," Jessie softly said.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Butch exclaimed. "One man cannot defeat an  
army!"  
  
Ash's body began to crackle with dark electricity as he floated several  
feet in the air. He lifted his glowing black sword up in both hands, the  
blade hissing with power, sparks emitting from the sharp tip. A strong  
wind began to pick up, and rocks, grass and other debris began to rise  
and get blown around.  
  
"I'm scared!" James said, from behind Jessie.  
  
  
  
  
  
"I'm telling you, that was Misty who just flew over us!" Bruno said  
stubbornly. "I think she crash-landed further up ahead." Him, Duplica,  
Junior, Laselle, Joylene, Captain Jenny and the remainder of the guards  
were running away to the south to escape the army and their dragon. They  
kept a low profile through the tall trees of the forest as they followed  
the other towns-people who had escaped earlier. Bruno had lifted his  
cloak higher so that he kept Laselle and Junior relatively dry from the  
rain, next to him.  
  
"I hope she's okay," Laselle voiced, as she pushed her wet hair out  
of her eyes and pulled the hood of her forest cloak to cover her head  
tighter. "But I wonder if she found Ash."  
  
And then there was an ear-splitting crack of thunder behind them, and the  
earth began to shake so much, trees shaking and leaves falling, that they  
all fell to the wet and marshy ground from the intense vibrations. The  
earthquake continued for several more minutes before it abruptly stopped.  
  
They looked far behind them and just saw the twisting tip of a massive  
tornado in the distance, through the upper canopy of the trees, black  
lightning emitting from it.  
  
Duplica spat out some mud that she had fallen in to. "I think that was  
Ashy," she said dryly.  
  
  
  
  
  
Jessie, James, Butch and Cassidy were all laying face-down on the grass  
with their weapons stuck into the ground, holding tightly to their hilts,  
when the wind and dust cleared. If they hadn't secured themselves to the  
land they would have been sucked into the giant electric tornado that had  
just suddenly erupted where Ash had been floating.  
  
Persian detached himself from Jessie's side and began to run off.  
"Perrrsian ... Time to go, guys!" he growled with fear in his feral  
voice.  
  
Jessie, rubbing herself where the cat pokemon had used his claws to glue  
himself to her, followed quickly. "That's right! Butch, Cassidy, it was  
fun, but I think we'll have to get you later! Sayanara!" She also ran  
off, red ponytail flapping behind her.  
  
James leaped to his feet. "Wait for me!" he whined.  
  
However Butch and Cassidy didn't even notice them as they were staring in  
shock at their army, or rather where their army used to be, which had  
just been completely annihilated.  
  
All that was left was an even larger crater where the black-cloaked man  
was still hovering, body crackling with electricity.  
  
Even Dragonight seemed a bit shocked as the massive black dragon had been  
dragged forward through the town it was destroying by the powerful wind's  
suction, and was now laying on its side across one of the broken stone  
town walls. It stood up to its full height of one hundred feet and began  
to angrily breathe flames of dark fire through its nostrils at the air  
and turning its head around to see what had caused it to be sucked in.  
  
"Crap," Cassidy said, with her hand covering her mouth.  
  
"This is outrageous!" Butch cried. "Dragonight, destroy him!"  
  
The dragon, already looking for something to fry to a crisp, needed no  
second order. It growled as it spotted the puny man hovering in the  
crater in front of it and inhaled, causing a large wind. Then it exploded  
a huge gust of black fire completely engulfing the human. It went on for  
at least a minute, before the dragon cut its flame off. The crater was a  
deep pool of red molten lava.  
  
But the man was still there, hovering over the lava, seemingly unharmed.  
Then the dark electrifying aura surrounding him, seemed to shift, and he  
suddenly flew towards the dragon, charging it directly. The black aura  
darkened until the man had resumed the shape of a comet.   
  
A fireball of shadow.  
  
The dragon reared back again to resume the Dragon Rage attack, but the  
black comet flew through its head completely decapitating it. It exploded  
in dark chunks, blackish-red blood raining everywhere like a fountain.  
The headless winged body seemed to pause, then it toppled over sideways  
into the ruined town. There was a large explosion as it fell on a  
half-standing building.  
  
Then the comet flew off rapidly into the horizon, in the direction where  
the Water Master had flown. Butch and Cassidy, with wide eyes, watched it   
fly away until it was no longer visible. They didn't even notice the rain  
as it began to fall down harder.  
  
  
  
  
  
Cold water splattered in wet drops across Misty's face, and she opened  
her eyes. She was lying down against the trunk of a tree, at the edge of  
a small clearing, where it had stopped her rapid slide after she had  
crashed. Although she had been under the cover of the branches above her,  
the rain was now getting so strong that the leaves didn't stop all of it   
from wetting her.  
  
Then she heard the sound of many wet foot-steps running her way and she  
flinched, pushing herself up to a sitting position. Ash! She had to get  
away! He-he was going to kill her! A hot wetness began to trickle down  
her cheek that was not the rain.  
  
"Misty!" a feminine voice called. "Are you okay?"  
  
It was Duplica. And Bruno. And the rest of them, with some people she  
didn't recognise. They came running out of the darkness of the shadows  
caused by some trees and into the clearing, and stopped before her.   
  
She began to panic. "You-You have got to get away from me! He's coming!  
You'll all get killed!"  
  
"By what?" Bruno asked.  
  
"Ash!"  
  
"What are you talking about? Why would Ash kill us?"  
  
And then he was there. At the edge of the clearing. A tall black shadow  
with red eyes.  
  
They turned around. "Ashy, is that you?" Duplica called out.  
  
The shadow stepped into the moon's light revealing himself fully. A  
hooded, cloaked figure holding a gleaming black sword by his side. He was  
silent as the night.  
  
"That's the other man who was with you earlier tonight." It was that  
Nurse Joy that had let them in to the town. "But ... he seems different.  
I can't feel anything from him at all." She gasped. "Like he's not even  
alive."  
  
"Ashy?"  
  
And then he lifted his sword in a rapid movement, aiming it at Misty, and  
shot a thin bolt of black lightning at her. It crackled in the rain as it  
flashed impossibly fast in a jagged movement.  
  
Misty quickly grabbed Starmos who was hovering next to her and used the  
black star pokemon as a shield. "S-Starmos, Barrier!"  
  
The star glowed brightly and the dark lightning ricocheted off its face  
and into a tree on the far side of the clearing. The tree exploded in a  
red fireball, lighting up the night and revealing Ash's emotionless face  
within the hood for a split-second. Then the fire died down and he was  
once again, a dark and menacing shadow.  
  
"What's happened to him?" Laselle cried. "Why is he attacking Misty?"  
  
Bruno stepped forward. "Ash, what the hell do you think you're doing? You  
could have killed her!"  
  
Ash turned his head slightly and seemed to look right through him. Bruno  
warily retreated a step backwards, unnerved by his look. And then Ash  
made a quick slash in the air with his sword, and Bruno, even though he  
was at least more than a dozen feet away from him, was smashed backwards  
powerfully, until his back crashed into the bough of a tree at the  
opposite end of the clearing. The trunk snapped and it fell over  
backward until it was stopped by another tree.  
  
"I'll take him," an armoured woman with short blue hair said, that Misty  
didn't recognise.  
  
The nurse held her back. "Don't be stupid, Captain. That man is a Pokemon  
Master. Take your men and run," she said matter-of-factly.  
  
"That's right," Duplica said, stepping in front of Misty, blocking her  
from Ash. "We don't know what's happened to him, but it looks like some  
sort of brain washing. And, trust me, you *don't* want to see the  
destruction that this here cute guy is capable of."  
  
The guards who were with them were already shrinking back in fear. The  
soldier woman, that the nurse called Captain, looked at them and nodded.  
"Well okay. Let's go then. Come, Nurse Joy, we'll leave the fighting to  
the Masters. We're outmatched here."  
  
And soon it was just Ash, Duplica, Laselle, Junior, Misty and the  
groaning Bruno still half-lying on the cracked tree.  
  
Ash stepped forward, his black cloak flapping slightly. It looked quite  
dry, despite the rain.  
  
Duplica looked at Laselle and Junior. "What are you two still doing here?  
You should have left with Captain Jenny and the others."  
  
"We want to help too," Junior replied. But they both looked afraid as Ash  
began to walk closer to them.  
  
And then Bruno leaped in front of them, his maroon cloak swishing around  
wetly. "Looks like we'll have that rematch, Ash," he said softly, lifting  
his fists in a fighting stance. His body began to glow a dark brown as he  
powered himself up.  
  
Ash just lifted his sword in one hand. It began to gleam a dark  
blue-black. Bruno prepared himself. And then there was a sudden crack of  
thunder, startling them, as the sword shifted back into Ash's black  
pikachu in his open hand. The small, dark electric mouse looked the same  
as always. Except it held a vacant look on its face and it had glowing  
red eyes that corresponded to its master.  
  
Ash suddenly threw Pikachu over Bruno's head, and it landed in front of  
Duplica and the two kids. Laselle and Junior stepped back warily, closer  
to Duplica as the small electric mouse walked forward slowly on all  
fours, jagged tail in the air.  
  
Ash and Bruno began to fight, sharp cracks of thunder sounding and the  
ground trembling as each of their arms struck the other.  
  
Pikachu advanced even more, cheeks beginning to emit black sparks,  
pointed ears laid back flat against its head. Its eyes glowed crimson.  
  
"Uh ... any ideas?" Laselle said, with a terrified look on her face.  
  
"Use your caterpie?" Junior tried.  
  
"Are you kidding?"  
  
"Um, I guess I'll use Sandshrew. I heard they are great against pikachu."  
He took a poke-ball from his belt, expanded it, then threw it. In a flash  
of brown light, the small yellow, armoured rodent appeared.  
  
But a thin black spark of lightning immediately shot out from Pikachu's  
tail and when it struck the unfortunate sandshrew, it screamed and was  
blown in two distinct pieces. Pikachu didn't even acknowledge it as it  
continued to advance.  
  
"Sandshrew!" Junior cried in horror.  
  
Duplica stepped forward, roughly pushing them back. "Misty seems to be in  
shock back there. I'll take care of this. Quick, think of the most  
powerful pokemon."  
  
"Ash's Pikachu?" Junior said, questioningly.  
  
"Other than that, silly!"  
  
"That Dragonite back at the town?" Laselle said.  
  
"No, too big," Duplica replied, shaking her head. "Think of something  
smaller."  
  
"How about a Mew?" she tried again.  
  
"Perfect."  
  
Duplica's violet-cloaked form blurred as she shifted down into the one  
foot tall, light-purple cat-like esper pokemon. Duplica-Mew began to  
float in the air, her long thin tail swishing, and formed a pink psychic  
bubble around her feline body.  
  
Pikachu's red eyes flashed at it, and it stood up on its hind legs as if  
preparing to attack.  
  
"Mew," Duplica-Mew purred in a soft voice. "I'll try ... Psychic!"  
Simultaneous with her last word, she floated higher in the air and  
launched a powerful pyschic blast of energy at the black pikachu.  
  
But the pikachu jumped to the side in a rapid manoeuvre and she missed.  
Duplica-Mew followed after it, shooting more psychic waves.  
  
The powerful attacks started to kick up a huge amount of mud from the  
forest floor so that it was even harder to see. However, soon Duplica-Mew  
was tired. Staying in the shape of a powerful pokemon and using its  
strongest attack had weakened her severely.  
  
Some debris was still floating around in the air as she looked around for  
Pikachu's body. "Mew ... where is he? I think I struck him a couple of  
times ... mew-aieeee!" She screamed as the black pikachu suddenly emerged  
from a puddle of mud, glowing dark with black electricity. It burst her  
pink barrier and smashed into her, knocking her flying away. Her flight  
was cut short after she smashed into a couple of trees. Her small body  
slid to the ground and blurred back into woman form, unconscious.  
  
Then Ash seemed to tire of his fight with Bruno and finally struck him a  
massive blow in the stomach with a rapid spin-kick, also sending him  
crashing into several trees, strong enough to actually shatter the trunks  
at each collision. A large boulder ended up stopping his wild backwards  
movement with a huge crash, and his body slid off it brokenly, also  
unconscious.  
  
Laselle and Junior began to step backwards in fear as Ash now focused on  
them. He lifted his arm and Pikachu leapt back towards him, morphing back  
into the black wicked looking sword as it was air-borne. Ash caught it in  
one smooth movement and then continued to approach.  
  
"No!" Misty suddenly cried, breaking out of her shocked stupor. "Not  
them! It's me you want!" She jumped to her feet, and threw her star  
pokemon out in front of her and jumped on. "Starmos, take off!" The black  
star pokemon complied and they lifted to the air rapidly.  
  
Ash crouched, forming the flying disc of pure shadow again underneath his  
feet, then followed her, his form blurring into the black comet.  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty skimmed over the tops of the forest atop her star pokemon, her wet  
red hair from the rain plastered to the sides of her face. She couldn't  
allow anyone else to get hurt when she herself was the target. She banked  
sideways and dodged yet another shot of black thunder from the comet of  
shadow following her. The dark energy blast exploded into a clump of  
trees behind her, disintegrating them completely.  
  
"Ash!" she cried behind her. "Fight it!"   
  
Because she couldn't fight back. Not against him.  
  
But the comet in pursuit was silent as it continued to fire blasts of  
energy. She desperately weaved from side to side, dodging them. It seemed  
Ash had no compunctions about killing *her*. He just seemed so dead of  
emotions. She couldn't sense any feeling in him at all. Not even hate. He  
was like a machine doing what it was told to do. Nothing more, nothing  
less. For that matter, she couldn't even sense any *life* at all in him.  
All living creatures emitted the aura of life. Their ki. But Ash had  
none.  
  
Misty screamed in undeniable loss as she realised this. Brock had been  
telling the truth. Ash was dead.  
  
"No!" she sobbed. She was sick of this. Running. It only caused herself  
and her friends to be hurt. It seemed that she had been running from Ash  
all her life. No more. It was time she faced up to her old demons. Faced  
up to Ash.  
  
She looped upwards and turned upside-down in a quick aerial manoeuvre.   
Then when she saw the dark comet underneath her, she leaped off her star  
pokemon, and shot downwards, arms outstretched in front of her like a  
diver. When she reached him, reached the black aura, everything turned  
black. She felt the coldness of despair. Ash's Despair?  
  
She swam through the darkness, as if she were a swimmer back at her gym  
so many years ago. The darkness seemed tangible, thick, pushing her back.  
But she pushed on. She had always been a good swimmer.  
  
Finally she saw him at the centre of the shadows. Cloaked in darkness.  
She swam downwards and grabbed his shoulders. It felt like ice. But ice  
colder than she had ever felt before. She ripped his hood off and swung  
herself around so that she was before him. She looked into his handsome  
face. His pointed cute nose. His slashing dark brows. His eyes which were  
usually so full of determination and courage, but now so dead, lifeless;  
no longer their natural colour of light brown, but an ugly flat red. His  
soft black hair which always fell into his eyes, that she was always  
tempted to smooth back for him. His mouth that she had always loved to  
kiss.   
  
His mouth.  
  
She kissed him.  
  
His lips were infinitely cold. But they grew warmer. She felt his arms  
come up around her to hug her close.  
  
"M-Misty?" The words were soft, muffled by her lips.  
  
It was him. He was back.  
  
  
  
  
  
Fuchsia State County.  
  
The child looked out her window, entranced by the night sky, glittering  
with millions of blinking stars.  
  
"Darling, time to go to bed."  
  
The child continued to stare in wonder. "Aw, mom! I wanna see this!"  
  
"What's so special about the sky? Oh!"  
  
Then mother and daughter stood in companionable silence as they watched  
the beautiful dark blue shooting star fly across the horizon in the  
northern night sky, a rainbow trailing its tail.  
  
  
  
*** End of Part 7  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Shadow Levitation  
Type : Flying / Shadow  
  
A disc of shadow is created and used for transportation. At a high enough  
velocity, more shadow energy is released to completely cover itself so  
that it resembles a black comet.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Yeah, I know this is basically just a sappy love story. Call me a  
hopeless romantic ^_^;;  
  
So now you all know who the man in the brown cloak was. Not that it  
wasn't obvious of course ...  
  
Oh, anyone else think that Evil Ash was just the coolest? I did and I was  
the one who wrote him! ^_^;;  
  
And Dragonight doesn't exist. Real dragonites (in the game) are only  
about 7 feet tall, not the 100 foot tall monster I wrote it as.  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey 


	8. Repercussions

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 8 - Repercussions  
  
  
Melvin yawned and then opened his eyes as he lay in bed. The first thing  
that he thought about was, why was it still dark? Was it still night  
time? He leaned over to the bed side table to see what time it was on the  
old clockwork time piece. The metal of the small clock was cold in his  
hand as he peered at it by bringing it close to his eyes. Seven in the  
morning, it looked like. Yet it was so dark, he couldn't see his hand in  
front of his face. For a moment he felt a cold rush of fear. Was he going  
blind? He already had to wear glasses.  
  
He quickly twisted himself around on the bed to face the shadow of his  
wife. "Martha?" he whispered.  
  
"What is it?" she groaned.  
  
"Can you see anything?"  
  
For a moment there was silence. Then her voice came back, grumpy. "Of  
course not. It's the middle of the night. Go back to bed."  
  
"But my clock says it's morning."  
  
"Then it's broken."  
  
Melvin felt intensely relieved at that. "Yeah, it must be." He rolled  
back over on to his back and tightened the covers around himself. But  
there was still a nagging feeling that something was wrong. For one  
thing, he was fully awake. He was a morning person, not a night person.  
By all rights, if it really was still the middle of the night, then he  
should be dead to the world. He tried to go back to sleep by closing his  
eyes. It didn't work.  
  
"This isn't working," he grumbled. "I'm getting up. It must be insomnia."  
  
"Fine," his wife answered.  
  
Melvin gently slipped sideways out of the covers and out of the bed. He  
felt around on the bedside drawer for his glasses and put them on. It was  
still dark. Clumsily, he navigated his way to the bedroom door. He hit  
his shins a couple of times but he kept silent. Martha would get annoyed.  
  
After a couple more collisions, with Melvin promising himself to lose  
some weight, he reached the door. He touched the cold metal of the handle  
and twisted. The door opened with a squeak and he slipped out.  
  
The wooden floor was freezing underneath his bare feet, but the living  
room was a bit brighter, not as dark as inside the bedroom. He walked  
slowly in the darkness to the table and picked up the flint. Using it, he  
lit the lamp. Immediately he could see better, the flame in the small  
lamp dancing, causing the shadows to move eerily from side to side. He  
pikced up the lamp by its handle and walked over to the kitchen. The  
clock on the wall read seven twenty in the morning.  
  
"Huh?" Melvin mumbled to himself. He walked quickly over to the windows  
and drew the curtains back. Outside, it seemed as if it was still  
early evening, the tall lamp posts still lit up. The sky looked like a  
moving sea of blue-black clouds. They seemed to cover the sun from  
letting down any light at all. In fact, it didn't even look like there  
was a sun behind all those clouds.  
  
"Honey, I think there's a problem with the weather!" he shouted out as he  
ran over to the cupboard and removed his pokemon belt. There wasn't an  
answer. She must have gone back to sleep, he thought, as he strapped the  
belt over his pyjamas and around his considerable waist.  
  
Then bringing the lamp, he ran over to the front door, opened it with a  
light click and stepped outside on the porch. There were a few other  
people walking around in the town, looking confused as they stared at the  
sky, with a lamp in each of their hands.  
  
"What's going on?" Melvin called out to one of his neighbours. He was the  
man who owned the farm out back towards Celadon, but lived mostly in the  
town-house next door. He was out on the dirt street in front of their  
house looking at the sky. In his hand he carried a lamp of his own as  
well as a long pitchfork in the other. On his head he wore a  
wide-brimmed, yellow straw hat.  
  
"Don't rightly know!" his neighbour replied. "Dark clouds blocking out  
the whole darn sky!"  
  
Melvin looked to the east where the sun should have risen. All there was,  
was a dark blue glow on a midnight black horizon. None of the stars were  
even visible.  
  
"Darn it!" the farmer continued. "If these here clouds don't clear by  
noon time, my crops'll go bad!"  
  
Melvin studied the clouds up above them. "They look like they're moving  
on though."   
  
"Look again! Those dang things are just swirling about, moving on  
nowhere."  
  
Then the ground seemed to tremble. Vibrations that began to get stronger  
and stronger beneath their feet. Melvin's house began to shake and dust  
fell from the roof on to his head.  
  
"What the shadows is this? An earthquake?" the farmer yelled.  
  
A growling interrupted them. Melvin whipped around, shining the  
light of the lamp towards the source of the sound at the foot of the  
porch. Red eyes flashed, and Melvin jerked back, startled.  
  
"Oh, it's only a rattata! Them critters are always scarin the life outta  
people!"  
  
Melvin studied it. It certainly looked like a rattata. Yet it didn't look  
like one either. Its skin tone was darker than usual and instead of   
square front teeth, it sported a pair of wickedly sharp fangs. It seemed   
to glow a dark blue colour similar to the hue of the clouds covering the   
sky.  
  
"It looks kind of weird," he cautioned.  
  
"Nonsense!" the farmer scoffed and began to approach it. He extended out  
his pitchfork to poke at it.  
  
"Watch out!" Melvin yelled.  
  
But it was too late. The rattata hissed and suddenly leapt on to the  
pitchfork at an ungodly speed. It ran up the long handle and then seemed  
to rip right through the farmer's wrist. The pitchfork clattered to the  
ground with the hand still attached to the handle. The farmer screamed in  
agony and bent over from the pain as the dark rattata turned around to  
attack him again.  
  
"No!" Melvin shouted. He ripped a poke ball from his belt and enlarged  
it in his hand. "Exeggcuter, go! Barrage now!"  
  
His Grass Pokemon shifted outward from the thrown ball in a haze of red  
light and then began to attack. But before it could do so, the Rattata  
sensed the threat and seemed to flash in some sort of Quick Attack. It  
shot into Melvin's walking tree pokemon and then began to melt it from  
the inside out. The Exegguter began to bubble up as the Rattata inside it  
seemed to feed off its very life force.  
  
"No, Exeggcuter!" Melvin cried. He began to remove his wand from his belt  
to execute his Raging Fire spell when the Pokemon suddenly exploded in  
dark chunks. A chunk of it landed upon Melvin's shoulder and it began to  
hiss like burning acid. Melvin screamed.  
  
"There's more of them!" Melvin's neighbour shouted. Sure enough, along  
the horizon it looked like a living tidal wave of Rattatas. The only  
sound they made was the scampering of feet upon the earth. It was what  
was causing the ground to tremble. It looked like they would reach the  
town soon. People yelled in fright as they noticed the flood of rats.  
  
"Let's get out of here!" Melvin cried quickly, rushing back into his  
house.  
  
He ignored the pain in his shoulder as he stumbled through the house  
towards the bedroom. "Martha, we've got to evacuate quickly!" Suddenly he  
tripped, stumbling slightly and the lamp in his hand jerked and went out.  
Instantly he was left in total darkness.  
  
No matter, he thought as he opened the door to their bedroom. "Martha?"  
There she was, a dark shape on the bed. "Martha, get up!" He ran over to  
the shape and pushed the covers aside.  
  
A pair red eyes flashed at him. Then more and more red eyes appeared so  
it seemed like the whole room was lighting up with them.  
  
"Darkness, no!" Melvin cried as he stumbled backward.  
  
The rattatas hissed and then leapt upon him.  
  
  
  
  
  
The tapping of the keyboard was unnaturally loud within the small  
makeshift lab. The small flames from a single candelabra lit up the  
metallic surfaces of the room, the shadows dancing in tune to the candle  
flames. Monitor screens and switches along the walls flashed like  
fireflies in the darkness. Sitting in a small corner of the room in front  
of a computer, a lone scientist in a white lab-coat worked quickly.  
  
Seymour studied the furious readings showing up on his monitor. He  
frowned as he noticed something particularly strange. Jumps in the  
world's power balance were fluctuating madly. Almost like the disaster of  
five years ago. But that was impossible wasn't it?  
  
"Cle-fairy!" His rounded pink pokemon seemed to move about on the table  
restlessly.  
  
"Quiet, Clefairy, your master is working now!" he said, his fingers  
dancing agilely over the keys. "Lessee, if I ambulate the triangulators  
..." he mumbled to himself, "I should see what is causing the disturbance  
... Good heavens above!"  
  
"Clefairy!" the pokemon said again, this time more agitated.  
  
"Dear heavens, what is wrong with you? Here we have the end of the world  
coming and you ..." He turned around. His eyes widened. All along the  
floors, it seemed like hundreds - no, thousands of snakes were slithering  
along towards them. But directly in front of him a huge black Arbok  
reared its head. Its eyes glowed malevolently in its serpentine face and  
its forked tongue darted in and out as it stared at him. Its razor sharp  
fangs dripped thick venom which hissed as it met the steel floor and  
melted right through.  
  
"Clefairy you should have warned me ..." was the last thing that Seymour  
said.  
  
  
  
  
  
At the edge of a forest and the bank of a slowly moving river, a group of  
five people were running rapidly to the east. In the lead was a woman  
with shoulder length, blue-black hair held in place by a red hair-band.  
Her long, green cloak, that matched her eyes, trailed behind, flapping in  
the wake of her sprint, as she brightened the way forward with a small  
torch held in her left hand. The small group of people leaped over  
various debris that lay in their path quickly and efficiently because any  
lost speed would most likely mean their death.  
  
Behind them, and gaining rapidly despite their efforts, was what seemed  
like a total black tidal wave of hostile flying insects, knocking over  
forests and whatever lay in their path like dominos in the short  
distance. There were so many, the sheer number of them seemed to  
absolutely cover the land and the river in a total blanket of darkness.  
The buzzing noises they emitted were so loud that only the sounds of the  
destruction they caused were comparative.  
  
"Hurry up, people!" Erika shouted, as she whipped a loose fold of her  
cloak over her shoulder with a free hand. She lifted the brightly  
glowing torch in her other and deftly navigated the group over a fallen  
tree. "We've got to make it to the coast where the Rebel base is!"  
  
Just her luck to be attacked when they had just been separated from Koga  
and Aya's soldiers after the battle the night before and were exceedingly  
vulnerable. The bugs also held them at a distinct elemental disadvantage.  
  
And if that weren't enough, it was obvious even at this distance that the  
beedrills looked so huge, each being about ten feet in length, that it  
was as if they were not ordinary pokemon but some sort of unearthly and  
deadly new species. In fact, they also seemed to emit an evil blue-black  
glow from their bodies. Erika had taken one look and knew they were bad  
news. It may have been cowardly to flee like this but heck, sometimes  
cowards were the wisest people of all.  
  
"They're catching up!" Joy cried.   
  
Erika took a brief look behind and realised that it was true. The wave of  
huge insects were only about two dozen feet away now, destroying  
everything that lay in their path like some sort of horrible plague. She  
turned back to the young girl running behind her and felt profound  
sadness. She regretted ever bringing the young nurse with her. She was  
just a kid!   
  
"Do you think we should stop to fight them?" one of her guards asked,  
fingering the poke-ball at her side.  
  
"Don't be foolhardy!" Erika hissed. "They'd overpower us in seconds! Keep  
your pokemon to yourselves."  
  
Then the buzzing seemed to grow louder.  
  
"That sounds like it's coming from right in front of us!"  
  
Erika spotted the trees at the edge of the forest ahead of them begin to  
quiver. Then they splintered and a small group of about five beedrills  
flew out and charged them directly. Their antennae seemed to quiver in  
excitement and hunger.   
  
"They are!" she shouted. "Stay back!" After throwing the torch to young  
Joy behind her, she sped up her foot speed and summoned her long black  
staff to her hands with a wave of green energy. As the weapon  
materialised along her palms, it lit up the darkness even more than the  
torch had.  
  
The first beedrill swooped down, seeming to aim its three huge stingers  
at her head and upper torso. As Erika approached she felt the wind  
created by its rapidly moving wings blow over her face and through her  
hair. Thrusting her staff to the ground, she used it to pole-vault up  
above to meet the insect in the air. Once airborne, she completed her  
downwards staff movement into a full overhead circle-strike to crack the  
the huge insect on the head.  
  
The beedrill seemed to cry in pain and flew crazily of course before it  
splashed into the river. Then Erika, still airborne, dispatched two more  
of them, by rotating once with a strong horizontal swing of her staff  
before she landed, still running, with a thump of her boots upon the dirt  
path. Behind her, her group of following guards leapt over the two  
quivering bodies which fell, and kept up with her pace.  
  
The last two beedrills blocking their way were slightly trickier to take  
care of, one of their stingers scoring a bloody path down her arm,  
but Erika hadn't achieved her title of Grass Master for nothing. The  
group jumped over the last two Beedrills smashed and quivering bodies  
soon enough.  
  
But it was useless, Erika thought, as she checked the distance of the  
massive swarm still chasing them with a flick of her head. They were  
still about a mile or so from the base and meanwhile the beedrills would  
soon overcome them. However there was a chance to save her guards ...  
  
She dropped to the rear of the group and then suddenly stopped running,  
her boots scratching twin furrows in the dirt as she skidded. She turned  
around with a flap of her cloak to face the oncoming swarm and recalled  
her staff away with a flicker of emerald light.  
  
Joy and her guards also stopped running when they realised Erika wasn't  
following any more. "What are you doing Mistress Erika?" one of them  
shouted.  
  
She lifted her arms and crossed them over each other. "Keep going people!  
I'll buy you some time!" Numerous green leaves and pink flower petals  
began to float out from the wrists of her long sleeves.  
  
Soon the air in front of her was a veritable wall of floating greenery  
and soft petals. It spread outward in a circular shape and then swirled  
around in the air like a protective barrier. When the first Beedrills hit  
it, they fell confusedly on the ground, their legs twitching as if they  
had been swatted. As more hit the wall, the pile of insects began to grow  
higher.  
  
Erika closed her eyes and a thin line of sweat dropped from her brow as  
she concentrated on spreading the poison barrier. "Now, go!" she cried to  
her watching guards.  
  
"But you can't keep this up forever, and then what?" a guard exclaimed.  
  
"We just can't leave you here to save us!" Joy cried.  
  
"We'll all make our stand here!"  
  
Erika sighed. "Stubborn! Fine! If you all have a death wish!" She  
concentrated harder on the barrier, making it thicker and more  
impenetrable. It looped around to their back and completely closed them  
off from harm in a protective bubble. Hundreds and hundreds of beedrills  
continued piling up outside.  
  
"Chansey, go!" Joy cried releasing her poke-ball.  
  
"Ivysaur, go!"  
  
"Victreebel, go!"  
  
"Tangela, go!"  
  
"If you see any part of the barrier weakening, you know what to do,"  
Erika called out still with her eyes closed.  
  
"And perhaps you won't have to ..." a voice interjected.  
  
Erika immediately opened her eyes and looked around. "Who said that!"  
  
In the corner, within the barrier, stood a figure dressed in a blue  
Master's cloak. Artic eyes flared within the hood.  
  
"Misty?" Erika laughed.  
  
The figure whipped the hood off revealing a head of long red hair  
reaching to the back of her waist and a beautiful, smiling face. "The one  
and only!"  
  
"How did you get here? Where did you come from?"  
  
"So many questions, so little time!" she said. She pointed to what looked  
like an opening in the ground by her feet. The edges of the hole looked  
blackened and melted. "I came by tunnel express!"  
  
"It seems like you're always saving me in the nick of time," Erika said,  
overjoyed. "Misty, you're great!"   
  
"And don't I know it!"  
  
Erika blinked. "My, aren't we modest today?"  
  
"And don't I have enough reason to be! Now everyone get in the tunnel,  
single-file," she ordered. "Erika goes last since she's the actual  
person maintaining the barrier."  
  
Soon, out of her group, it was only Erika who had to enter the tunnel.  
"Misty, you're going after me?" she asked as she was about to step into  
the hole.  
  
"Of course. I'll have to close up the tunnel after us."  
  
Erika took one last look at the horrific numbers of beedrill trying to  
get inside. "Then watch out when I release the barrier," she cautioned.  
"Get in quick, understand?" Then she released her hold over the poison  
barrier and ducked into the dark tunnel after the rest of her group.  
  
The blue-cloaked woman stepped over the hole and watched as the barrier  
of petals and leaves began to fall to the earth. As soon as it was  
breached, the horrible ear-deafening buzzes of the beedrills leaked  
through and then it seemed like a whole black sky of insects were closing  
in from all directions. Their eyes flashed red and their antennae  
quivered hungrily. Uncountable stingers were all aimed and pointed  
directly at her.  
  
"Stupid bugs," the woman said to herself. She lifted her right arm and  
extended her fingers into the air. Lasers of white light exploded forth  
from her palm and disintegrated all the beedrills in range to fine ivory  
ashes. The swarm was startled enough that it left enough time for the  
woman to jump into the hole and escape.  
  
  
  
  
  
The stone wall cracked against Brock's back and he gritted his teeth as  
another bone-crushing force of unseen energy squeezed him against it.  
His feet dangled uselessly above the floor as he struggled to gain his  
balance.  
  
"How could you let them escape?" The calm voice came from the shadows at  
the end of the room.  
  
Brock thought about turning his body into rock, but then thought better  
of it. "The-the psychic hold we held over him was broken, my Lord."  
  
The shadow sighed. "If you had just killed them before trying to show  
off..." The strength of the power squashing Brock against the stone  
doubled and he grunted as a trickle of blood began to leak from one  
nostril and down his chin.  
  
"I-I'll get them now, my Lord," Brock gasped, finding it hard to breathe.  
"I know where they are!"  
  
"Do you now? Well see that you do." The voice chuckled. "Nothing fancy  
like what you tried earlier, though it was certainly amusing." The voice  
grew serious and flat. "Just kill them dead. And just so you won't bungle  
up matters this time, I'm sending two more Masters with you that I've  
just ported in."  
  
"I can get them myself..."  
  
The voice turned mocking. "If you think you can kill Ash all by yourself,  
you're certainly overconfident. Just like last time. The difference is  
that he may be forewarned now of just who it is that he's up against."  
  
Abruptly, the force crushing Brock to the wall intensified for an  
agonising second before it suddenly gave out, dropping Brock to the floor  
like excess garbage. He lay along the ground on his hands and knees,  
brown cloak draped over his body, coughing and choking a mixture of  
saliva and blood.  
  
Then the voice startled him again. "I'll be waiting at Indigo Plateau.  
Bring tangible evidence that you've disposed of them. Preferably their  
heads." And then the room was silent in the wake of the League Master's  
exit.  
  
For a moment, Brock was content to stay still on his hands and knees  
before a different voice startled him.  
  
"It seems Lord Garrick was most displeased with you." It was feminine and  
emotionless.  
  
Brock looked up to find a tall but slim figure in a cloak the colour of  
twilight. "Gary always was a hot-head," he said softly, not because he  
wanted to, but because the force that had just crushed his throat left  
his voice weak. He stood up casually and wiped his bloody nose with the  
back of his hand. "Let's go." He turned around with a whip of his brown  
cloak and left the room.  
  
Sabrina looked at his back and the emotionless mask of her face dropped  
into a frown.  
  
  
  
  
  
Darkness. Pain. Anger. Loneliness. Sadness. Those were the first few  
frames of mind that Ash went through as he regained consciousness. He  
regretted it. He felt cold and wet, yet hot at the same time. Underneath  
his back and legs, it felt like a floor of hard, damp stone. In contrast,  
something warm and soft was lying on top of him. It felt heavenly, that  
warmth in the moist coldness. He opened his eyes, his eyelids feeling  
like they were weighted or tied down to his cheeks. His flesh itched as  
if something was wrong. Why was it so dark? His night vision was perfect.  
Was perfect.  
  
Then a thought came to him. Pikachu? He immediately began searching out  
for the awareness of his one true friend in the world. There. Pikachu was  
okay, but still asleep, and about a half dozen feet away from him.  
  
He took stock of his surroundings as best as he could gather even with  
his decreased vision. He realised he was lying in a cave of some sort.  
There was a dim light coming from the rocky, glittery walls. Something  
dark red was resting underneath his chin. It was soft and ticklish. Hair.  
It was red hair. Who had red hair? His mind felt as if it were shattered  
glass, broken, confused and disassembled. Then the red hair rose upward,  
and suddenly, large blue eyes, softly glowing a dim azure in the  
darkness, were staring down at him. She blinked once. It was a woman  
lying on his chest, he realised. Her face was familiar ...  
  
They said nothing to each other, just staring in the mutual silence. And  
then the woman pushed herself further along his chest so that her face  
was inches from his own. A lock of long red hair fell so that it  
caressed his cheek. It tickled like a feather, but he didn't move, just  
stared at the brilliant orbs of her eyes. Her arms, encased in blue  
material, rose to hold the sides of his head. Her full weight pressed  
upon him so that he could feel the twin mounds of her chest upon his own.  
  
Her eyes began to glow brighter, and a brilliant blue aura began to emit  
from her body. Ash felt her turn hot, almost too hot. But the warmth was  
a lifeline from the cold, uncomfortable air. Her face lowered, as if  
seeking a kiss. Her pink-tinged, exquisitely shaped lips descended to his  
own. He couldn't move. But did he want to move?  
  
And then her warm lips touched his, first a light touch as if they were  
the petals of a rose, then heavier. He couldn't help but begin to return  
it. His arms lifted to caress her back. The feel was familiar. And then  
the fog in his mind seemed to lift. Misty. She was Misty. The girl he had  
loved. But the girl who had broken his heart. He started to push her  
away, but found he just couldn't. It felt too good. The feelings he  
hadn't felt in a long, long time. It was like the first point of light to  
a traveller lost in the darkness. Yet he was still lost, wanted to be  
lost, but in these feelings.  
  
She rolled him over so that they were both laying on their sides, all the  
while kissing. But then a sharp rock poked him in the waist. The small  
pain lifted the hazy fog of sensations from his mind and suddenly,  
rationality returned to regain control over his feelings. He broke the  
kiss abruptly and rolled away from her.  
  
He lifted himself to a sitting position. "What do you think you were  
doing?" He felt ashamed of how rough his voice sounded. He hoped she  
couldn't hear the loud beating of his heart. How could he still have any  
feelings for her?  
  
Her face seemed to pale in the darkness. Then it darkened. "I'd think  
that was obvious," she said dryly. "But then you always were a tad slow."  
  
At the insult, he felt on more familiar ground. "You enjoy one-night  
stands?" he asked sarcastically. "Going to run away in the morning?"  
  
Her eyes glared at him. "I've never had a one night stand in my life."  
She sniffed condescendingly. "Most probably unlike you."  
  
Ash felt his face redden in the darkness. "And so what if I have? It's  
not like you still had a claim on me."  
  
"But what about when I did?" she fired back at him.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Ash said, puzzled. "You know as well as I  
do that I was always faithful to you."  
  
"Do I now? Look, let's get this right into the open right now," she said,  
her tone turning frosty. "You were as much to blame as I was for our  
break-up back then. You didn't love me." She looked down, not meeting his  
eyes. "You loved being a Pokemon Master and the popularity it gave you."  
  
Ash crawled over next to her, sat down and sighed. "I can't believe that  
you would even think that." He played with a fold of his cloak over the  
knee of his trousers. "How many times have I told you it would have  
all been worthless if I hadn't had you with me every step of the way? You  
didn't have to just leave me without telling me anything, like our being  
together just wasn't worth the effort."  
  
She lifted her head and stared at him with accusing eyes. Abruptly she  
shot forward and grabbed him about the shoulders with shocking strength.  
She flipped him around and slammed his back into the cave wall. Ash's  
teeth clicked together at the impact.  
  
"Don't lie, goddamn you!" she shouted. "You were playing with my feelings  
just like you've always been accusing me ever since we met again!" A tear  
trickled a little way out of the corner of her left eye. "I could see you  
were losing interest in me. Otherwise you wouldn't have, wouldn't have-"  
She choked not finishing the sentence. She let go of him and turned the  
other way, no longer facing him.  
  
"Wouldn't have, what?" he asked softly at her back.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Nothing?" Ash asked, his voice rising higher. But then a piercing pain  
skewered his head and suddenly memories assaulted his mind like boulders  
against a stone wall. He groaned, falling over forwards, with his hands  
tightly clutched around his temples.  
  
The tower. Sabrina. Vague impressions of him fighting. But not who with.  
Then a blank. The gate. The gate! He had failed to stop the League from  
opening it. Failed! He felt it. Had felt the sheer wrongness in the air  
from the start.  
  
When he became aware of his surroundings, he found Misty holding his head  
against her, strongly concerned. Her hand was threaded through his hair.  
  
"What's wrong Ash? Speak to me!" Her voice was panicked.  
  
"I-I'm okay," he said, lifting himself away from her. He wiped a thin  
line of sweat from his brow with a sleeve. "I-I want to know what's  
happened. My memory's not so good."  
  
Her soft voice was hesitant. "You were captured." She paused as if trying  
to decide what to say. "We were unable to stop them from opening the  
gate." She told him about the vortex and all that she had seen atop the  
tower.  
  
"I thought so," Ash confirmed weakly, lowering his hands to the damp  
stone floor. This was bad. Very bad.  
  
"I-I managed to take you from them," her voice continued over his  
punishing internal monologue. "We were lucky to escape with our lives."  
  
He looked up. She had sat herself down in a kneeling position, her blue  
cloak falling around her body in disarray. "Why am I still alive? They  
would have killed me. They would have been furious with me."  
  
She hesitated. "Maybe they needed you for something."  
  
"Needed?" He laughed without any humour. "Needed me dead more like it.  
I'm sure Gary would have enjoyed having revenge on me for 'killing' him.  
He probably would have liked to cut me up in lots of little bite-sized  
pieces."  
  
"It was someone else who wanted revenge." Her expression grew troubled.  
  
"Someone else?"  
  
She closed her eyes. "Brock's alive."  
  
He felt happiness lift his soul. "Brock's alive? Why didn't you tell  
me sooner? How is he?" He laughed, feeling on top of the world. "I knew  
it! That guy is tough as rock. Should have known he was way too hard for  
Gary to beat." Then he noticed Misty's serious face. "Hey, how come  
you're not happy for him?"  
  
"I'll say this plainly so that there's no misunderstanding," she said,  
her voice even. "Brock is one of them. He's one of the League. And he's  
never been on our side. He was a double agent."  
  
Ash felt the floor of his happiness drop from underneath him. Shock  
replaced it. Then denial. "No ... you must be mistaken," he said flatly.  
"I know Brock. He's a good guy. Hell, if after all the time we spent  
travelling with him when we were kids, you still didn't know that, then I  
don't know what kind of friend you are."  
  
"Ash," she said tiredly. "I know that. I honestly believe that he's a  
good person. At heart. But he is the one who was taking revenge." She  
opened her blue cloak allowing him a glimpse of the large white bandage  
wrapped around her upper waist, just underneath the dark-blue tank-top  
she wore underneath. The bandage was slightly pink, the blood beginning  
to soak through.   
  
"My God," Ash said, instantly moving over to her side. "What the hell  
happened to your side?"  
  
"He did this. To knock me out so he could have his way with us."  
  
He ignored her and began unwrapping the bandage. The wound must have been  
pretty deep to soak through this much fabric.  
  
"Ah! Careful!" she hissed as the last of the bandage tried to stick to  
her wound. "What do you think you're doing? You want me to bleed to  
death?"  
  
"Just shut up for a second, Misty, and let me take care of this," he said  
authoritatively. "This had to be changed anyway, as it was beginning to  
soak through."  
  
The cut was a medium-sized circular puncture located just above her  
waistline. The wound was beginning to bleed freely in the open air. Thank  
the heavens, he thought, as he studied it. Any more inches above or to  
the side and whatever pierced her side would have hit something vital.  
He sensed out Pikachu with his mind to wake him up. He knew from the low  
power level emanating from him that he needed the rest, just like he did,  
but this was an emergency.  
  
"Pika?" Pikachu said sleepily as a short shadowy form in the corner,  
laying against what looked like his backpack, stood up and stretched.  
  
"Pikachu, hurry over here. Misty needs help."  
  
"Chu!" Pikachu said, folding his paws against his chest. His cobalt blue   
eyes were narrowed as he looked fiercely at Misty.  
  
Ash sighed and sent a telepathic thought to him. I know what you think  
about her, he thought, and yes I'm still practically her slave since she  
can kill me any time she wants with that damn elemental enchantment, but  
this is Misty here! And don't forget, if she dies, I die.  
  
"Pi," his pokemon said, nodding reluctantly. It scampered over to his  
side on all fours.  
  
"What were you talking about?" Misty asked curiously.  
  
"Nothing important," he said nonchalently. "Now stay still. Relax. This   
will sting a bit." Then he concentrated his power and rapidly thrusted   
his open palms on top of her wound. His hands glowed a dark blue-black   
over the wound and Misty screamed.  
  
Now, Pikachu! he thought. When he felt his pokemon adding his will to  
his, they both concentrated on healing. He probed the wound with his  
mind's eye and began to knit the flesh together again. Using the stray  
elements of power given off by Misty's body, he strengthened his efforts  
and soon he lay on his side, finished and resting. Pikachu just scampered  
back over to his backpack and nodded off back to sleep.  
  
Misty was examining her side. She would find nothing there but recently  
healed pink flesh. It wouldn't even leave a scar in a couple of days.  
  
"Thanks," she said, looking down at him.  
  
He continued to lie down, breathing hard. Perhaps he shouldn't have  
expended this much effort when he was barely alive enough himself. "Now  
about what you were saying ... maybe it wasn't Brock. Maybe it was  
someone who just looked like him? Couldn't you have been mistaken?"  
  
Misty sighed. "Stubborn is what you are ... I'm telling you, it was-"  
  
"So why did you kiss me?"  
  
She choked. "That again?"  
  
"Well you didn't answer my question before." He waited, smiling slightly  
to himself while she seemed to flounder around for an answer.  
  
"You have to be cleared of the blood-bond I put you under," she  
finally said. "Otherwise, the effects of the water mastery will kill you  
very soon."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Don't you remember? It was what I used to persuade you to come with me  
in the first place."  
  
"I know that, but I fail to see what that's got to do with kissing me,"  
Ash said, rubbing his forehead. "Besides, I would have thought you  
enjoyed having me under your control ..."  
  
She stayed silent for a moment. "Well, obviously I don't have to  
'control' you any more, now do I? Unless you want me to control you?" she  
added in a humorous tone.  
  
"Ha, you wish."  
  
"As for the kissing part, don't count yourself a stud just yet. The power  
I used, fused your very being with mine so that you would die without  
more of it."  
  
Ash thought about it for a while. "So in some crazy way, my body's  
addicted to you?" he asked with an ironic look on his face.  
  
She smiled, her pink lips turning up at the corners under a lock of red  
hair. "I suppose you could say that."  
  
"So, I also suppose, that to cure me of this addiction, we'll have to-"  
  
"Join our spirits, body and soul," she finished.  
  
He stared at her, then groaned. "Maybe you should have just let me die."  
  
  
  
  
  
In a totally different cave some miles away from where Ash, Misty and  
Pikachu were recovering, Duplica was just beginning to wake up to the  
sound of soft voices talking.   
  
She opened her eyes and grumbled low in her throat as the various aches  
and pains of her body all decided to voice their complaints at the same  
time. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness. It was dark, but a  
campfire crackled nearby and she was grateful to the light and the  
warmth. It wasn't smoky inside the cave so she realised that there must  
have been an opening in the roof somewhere to let the smoke escape.   
  
As she regained her bearings, she recognised the voices which had woken  
her up as Laselle and Junior's. She turned her head slightly and spotted  
them on the other side of the fire. The young girl looked weary, her  
green mantle ripped in several places and her long black hair messy,  
while Junior looked about the same, tired, with bags underneath his eyes  
and his cap at a low angle on his head. And the big maroon lump over by  
the wall was most probably Bruno.  
  
"So, why do you admire Ash so much?" Laselle was saying softly as she  
patted her caterpie on the head which was sitting in her lap contentedly.  
"Shouldn't you have been going for your boss?"  
  
"Well, Master Bruno's a tough guy, but don't you know who Master Ash is?"  
Junior voiced back. "Ash Ketchum was the youngest trainer to attain the  
title of Pokemon League Champion ever! He was battling real pokemon while  
we were battling with stuffed toys." He paused. "And also, according to  
rumour, probably the best darn Master there ever was."  
  
"He's that Ash?" Laselle sounded reverent. "I can't believe this!"  
  
"Yep," Junior said proudly. "Of course he gave up his title to become an  
explorer. If he didn't he'd probably still be Pokemon League Master. But  
no one ever knew if he did discover any new pokemon on his journeys. When  
the Dark Wars erupted about five years ago, he came back a totally  
different man. At least, that's what Master Bruno told me."  
  
Duplica finally spoke up as she pushed herself up to a sitting position.  
"Well, I'd say, having your heart broken could make you act strange.  
Trust me, I know."  
  
Laselle spun around so quickly she almost fell into the campfire. "You're  
awake!" she exclaimed.  
  
"We weren't sure if there was anything seriously wrong with you," Junior  
explained. "But you and Master Bruno got busted up pretty bad."  
  
Duplica shifted her hand into a small mirror and examined her bruised  
face. "Tell me about it," she said dryly. Her hair was an absolute fright  
and was caked with so much dried mud that it looked as if she were a  
brunette. And not just her hair, her cloak and face also resembled a mud  
wrestling battleground. "I hope the smoke from your fire isn't announcing  
our whereabouts to everyone in the area."  
  
Junior looked at the fire. "I don't think so. Laselle said she fixed it  
up outside so that the smoke would be hard to see."  
  
"Yep," Laselle confirmed. "I did get first in my class for survival  
training!"  
  
"That's good." Then as Duplica was examining herself with her literal  
hand-mirror, she was suddenly startled by Bruno letting out a low groan.  
  
"Did anyone get the number of that Snorlax?" the big man said as  
he sat up slowly, rubbing his head. Duplica gave a small smile. It looked  
as if he had also been swimming in the mud. His crusty cloak was more  
brown than maroon.  
  
"Master Bruno!" Junior said excitedly. "You're okay too!"  
  
He grunted one of those male grunts. "So, where are we, sport?"  
  
"Well after Master Ash took off after Mistress Misty, we dragged you guys  
over to the nearest shelter we could find."  
  
"And where is that?" Duplica asked, as she continued to try to rub away  
some spots of dried mud from her face with a finger. But it felt like the  
damn things were super-glued to her face.  
  
"As far as I can tell, we're in a cave somewhere around east of the  
Saffron ruins," Laselle answered.  
  
Bruno grunted again and seemed to think about something.  
  
"But do you think Master Ash and Mistress Misty are okay?" Junior  
suddenly voiced in a worried tone.  
  
Duplica gave up on cleaning herself up the hard way and shifted her hand  
back to normal. "Of course they're okay. Even if Ash was acting a little  
... how you say, weird, I don't think he could ever harm Misty even if he  
wanted to."  
  
"Besides, if anything happened, we would feel it in here." Bruno thumped  
his chest. "And right now, I feel they're fine."  
  
"So what are we going to do now?" Laselle asked.  
  
Duplica stood up, bits of dust and dried mud cracking off her violet  
cloak and falling on to the ground. "Well right now, I'm getting myself  
cleaned up." She concentrated and felt the familiar warmth of her body's  
metamorphosis. She felt herself liquefy as she shifted her body to water  
and then expelled all the dirt that clinged to her. The mud flowed down  
from her liquefied torso and fell to the ground. Then she changed her  
body back to its solid state.  
  
She opened her eyes and looked at them all staring at her with amazed  
expressions on their faces. She shrugged. "I should have just done that  
from the beginning."  
  
Bruno clucked his tongue. "Show off." Then he too cleaned the mud off his  
cloak, but by recalling it away, then calling it back with a flash of  
light. Although, Duplica thought, smiling to herself, his skin and  
underclothes were most likely, still dirty.  
  
"I wish I could do that," Laselle said as she picked sadly at her dirty  
forest cloak.  
  
"Me too," Junior added, looking down at his muddy jeans and jacket.  
  
Bruno stood up and stretched his big arms. "Well we can all have a bath  
when we get to the Rebel base on the coast, east of the Vermillion ruins  
and south of Lavender. I'm sure that's where Misty and Ash would be  
headed and we might even meet up with Erika, Koga and the rest. Let's  
go."  
  
Duplica frowned as she felt the air with her senses. "Only one problem  
with that."  
  
"What?"  
  
She sighed. "You are so dense, Bruno. Can't you feel that the balance of  
power has shifted? We'd be murdered if we just went outside along our  
merry way."  
  
Laselle gasped, covering her mouth. "Murdered? And I've been scouting  
around outside too!"  
  
Bruno snorted. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"In case you didn't notice, the little scuffle last night with Ash  
playing tag with Misty means that the League must have succeeded in what  
they meant to do. They've put the prophecy of Armageddon in motion."  
  
"The End of the World?" Junior exclaimed.  
  
"Great, just great," Bruno grunted.  
  
"In case we're going to be doing a little travelling, I want no use of  
elemental power at all, that means no use of Pokemon special abilities  
or," she looked directly at Bruno, "your own," she finished. "Unless we  
want to be attracting some uninvited guests from that little place they  
call Hell."  
  
"Forbidden Pokemon. I thought we had enough of them during the last Dark  
Wars."  
  
"The difference this time is that these one's objectives are to wipe the  
earth clear of all life." She folded her arms as Junior and Laselle stood  
up and gathered their things. She looked at Junior. "Now that you're  
okay, I expect you to use your Ponyta and double with Laselle. No way am  
I letting all three of you work my poor back again. Just be careful not  
to use any of Ponyta's flame attacks and you should be fine."  
  
Junior threw up his palms. "Fine with me!"  
  
Then she turned to Bruno.  
  
"What?" he asked, scratching his stick-up brown hair encrusted with mud.  
  
She lifted her arm and after liquefying it, drenched him in a steady  
stream of water. Bruno spluttered and stumbled backwards as she soaked  
him thoroughly.  
  
When she was finished, Bruno looked pitiful, wet and bedraggled, his   
hair plastered to the sides of his face and his cloak resembling a   
filled up sponge. "And just what did you do that for?" he inquired in a  
dangerous tone.  
  
Duplica lifted her hand and sucked the moisture from his body with it,  
leaving him dry and clean. "Well if you're going to ride me again, I  
expect an immaculate rider." She stuck her tongue out at him and then  
marched off to the cave entrance.  
  
  
  
  
  
The forest was a tapestry of dark shadows, seeming to be tailored  
exclusively of gloomy shades of black and grey. It was so deathly quiet,  
not even the sounds of insects or any animal at all interrupted the  
strange silence.  
  
Misty hoisted herself up from the cave, or more precisely, hole in the  
ground at the edge of some stony ground in a small clearing. When they  
had crash landed last night, the fireball they created melted a solid  
tunnel deep in the rocky forest floor. Which was quite fortunate  
really, since it gave them a place to stay for the night.  
  
After she lifted herself out, she used her remaining momentum to take a  
quick forward roll with the dried vegetation crackling underneath her.  
Then she hunched down on her ankles, ready. It was dark, but she could  
see quite well even in the dimness, and she did so now to search for any  
sign of danger. Her eyes took long and quick sweeps all around the tall,  
rough trees, that seemed more black than brown in the absence of light.  
  
Then she stood up and dusted her blue cloak off from dead leaves and  
grass that had clung to it. "No sun at all, and it's supposed to be  
mid-morning," she called out.  
  
Behind her, Ash leaped out of the hole with a backflip. She turned around  
to watch him as he settled his black cloak around him and surveyed their  
surroundings. "And lo, there shall be darkness," he quoted in an eerie  
tone.  
  
"Pika," Pikachu said as he leaped out as well and stood by his master's  
feet.  
  
Misty shivered. "Let's get to the base quick. We can figure out what  
we're going to do once we get there." She lifted a hand and felt there  
was absolutely no breeze either. Except for the three of them, everything  
was silent and still. "I don't like this one bit at all." She was about  
to reach for Starmos pinned on her cloak when Ash suddenly leaped over  
and grabbed her wrist tightly.  
  
"Don't use it," he warned. "If your Pokemon uses its special ability to  
fly around, that will attract them."  
  
"Them?" Misty suddenly remembered the millions of tortured voices coming  
through the vortex when she was atop the tower at Cerulean. She shuddered  
and immediately dropped her wrist when Ash let her go. "So how are we  
going to get to the base then?"  
  
Ash snapped his finger and Pikachu leaped up to ride in his backpack. He  
looked up at the nearest tree. It was thick and gnarled and so high, she  
couldn't see the top of it from here. "Like this," he said, as he  
suddenly crouched, then sprang up off the ground in a tall leap. In  
midair, he twisted around so that his feet struck the trunk, and landing  
upon the vertical plane, he jumped again with a scattering of bark, to  
the next tree. Then he simply grabbed on to the lowest branch and hoisted  
himself up.  
  
"You mean jump from branch to branch?" Misty asked. Then she followed his  
lead, by also thrusting herself upwards and using the first tree as a  
springboard to jump over to the branch like him.  
  
"You're a quick learner," Ash said, smiling. "Now let's go higher."  
  
He jumped to a higher branch on to a different tree and Misty followed  
him upwards until they were at the upper canopy of the forest. They were  
so high up, that she could no longer see the ground but instead could  
stare at parts of the swirling black clouds in the sky that weren't  
covered by the uppermost branches and leaves.  
  
For a moment, Ash, standing on the branch next to her, also looked at  
what they could see of the sky. "You know, I don't see how we're going to  
get out of this," he said in a hopeless tone. He combed his fingers  
through his black hair, then covered his head with his hood. "I've failed  
again."  
  
Misty arranged her red hair around the back of her neck, then also  
covered up with her hood. "What do you mean, again?"  
  
He looked at her, his brown eyes shining golden in the darkness. "It  
should have ended when I killed Gary." He paused, thinking. "Maybe if I  
stuck around for a while and made sure, this wouldn't be happening. Hell,  
maybe if I hadn't gave up my title and let Gary be League Master in the  
first place, a lot of suffering would have never have been."  
  
Misty held his cloaked arm. It felt warm and strong. She wished he would  
just hug her without any of the past interfering with the present. "Don't  
bother with the 'maybes' or we'll be here forever." She thought about it.  
"Besides, if Gary hadn't been League Master, there's also a chance that  
Giovanni would have won the Dark Wars and then where would we be?"  
  
He looked down at her hand clutching his arm. "You're right, I guess."  
Then he reached around with his other arm to hold her. For a moment they  
just held one another. It felt almost as if they were the only ones on  
the world. Misty missed the special closeness they had like this.  
  
Then Ash spoke up again. "It was about three years ago. He was planning  
to use the prophesy of Armageddon. Not the partial one that Giovanni used  
to further his own ends, but to actually use it for its true purpose." He  
let go of her arm and rubbed his fingers through his hair. "So arrogant,  
he wanted to rebuild the world to how he wanted it. I found out and  
challenged him. He should have died and that would have ended it. It was  
the reason I left the League in the first place. That and other personal  
reasons..."  
  
"So this is the true end of the world," she said softly. "Why didn't you  
tell us back at the meeting?"  
  
"I-I didn't want to cause a panic. I didn't want a repeat of what  
happened last time ..." He paused for a second. "But now, something far  
worse will happen."  
  
"But is there a way to stop the Armageddon?"  
  
His voice was flat and dead. "No."  
  
"What do you mean, no?" she protested. "There's always a way. What if we  
destroy the towers at the focus points?"  
  
"Once the prophecy has been set in motion? The only thing that would do  
would release the others that much faster."  
  
She paused. "Others? What do you mean by that?"  
  
"When the barrier was opened, all of the Forbidden could not come out at  
the same time. Think of unplugging a bath tub full of water, with the  
water in the tub lying in three layers. Right now, only the first layer  
has flowed out and it will take several days for the others to escape  
too. But If we tried to destroy the towers currently, that would be like  
tipping the whole tub over letting everything go at once." He shook his  
head sadly. "But anyway we take it, if all of them manage to come out,  
you don't know what kind of terrors will be free to cause destruction."  
  
Misty stared at him. "You're just filled with good news today, aren't  
you, Ash?" she said dryly.  
  
He abruptly stepped away from her with a flap of his black cloak and  
turned to the next tree. Misty already missed his warmth as the cold,  
still air replaced it. "This doesn't mean I'm giving up," he said  
determined. "Even if I have to destroy every single damn Forbidden  
Pokemon in Hell myself, you know I'll do it, or die trying."  
  
That was her Ash speaking alright. "Never doubted it for a second."  
  
"Now, as far as I can tell, we're north-east of Fuchsia State County. You  
know where the base is. Lead on," he waved his arm eastwards. The tall  
treetops and branches stretched out before them, dark and still. "My  
night vision isn't back to a hundred percent yet anyhow."  
  
"I was wondering why you were being so chivalrous," she said, before she  
crouched and jumped off, the branch creaking beneath her feet causing the  
leaves to rustle. Ash followed and soon they were making quite good time  
as they leapt from branch to branch, moving steadily eastwards.  
  
  
  
  
  
Hours later, Misty's boots thumped as she landed on yet another branch  
and crouched, keeping her balance with a hand grasping the rough wood.  
She had stopped counting how many she had jumped along, but it had to be  
in the hundreds.  
  
The branch shook a few times, causing a few leaves to fall around them as  
Ash landed next to her, his cloak billowing around him, like her own.  
  
"Seems like a wind has picked up," he said softly. "Strange."  
  
She felt the air brush against her skin. "It's getting colder too."  
  
And then Ash was suddenly jumping in front of her, his black cloak  
obscuring her vision. Something flashed orange and red like fire around  
his body. "Watch out, argh!" He fell backwards upon her and Misty quickly  
grasped his waist and desperately tried to keep their balance on the  
precarious branch.  
  
When Misty saw what happened to him, she expelled a breath as she found  
what looked like the shaft of a burning arrow in his shoulder. She  
quickly grabbed the end of it in her hand and extinguished the  
still-burning fletching with her fingers.  
  
"Not now!" Ash shouted as he grabbed her around the waist and then leapt  
off the branch. As Misty turned her head to look back at the branch they  
had just jumped from, another flame arrow shot into it. Upon contact of  
the arrow, the whole tree glowed red and simply disintegrated into black  
ashes which floated around in the air.  
  
Misty grunted as Ash landed roughly on a branch still carrying her in his  
arms. The tree limb began to shake hard and Misty abruptly felt Ash's  
feet drop from underneath him and they began to fall. Quickly Misty  
reached up with a hand and grabbed on to the branch, the rough bark  
scratching her palm. She roughly grabbed on to Ash's hand in the other.  
They were left dangling up high and swinging dangerously with only  
Misty's arm to support the both of them.  
  
Misty gritted her teeth as she strained to keep her hold upon the branch.  
"Ash, what's wrong?" she called down to him.  
  
"I-I don't know," his voice said weakly. "I just suddenly felt so tired,  
that I slipped."  
  
She looked down at him. His hood had blown off letting his hair get blown  
back by the wind. He had his eyes closed. Misty frowned as she noticed  
the arrow still sticking out of his left shoulder. Blood had begun to  
leak out of the wound.  
  
"Is it the arrow?"  
  
"No, I've actually been feeling pretty bad ever since I woke up." He  
coughed. "Of course, the arrow's not helping any."  
  
And then a loud laugh interrupted them. Misty looked up at the direction  
of the source. On a different tree some two dozen feet away, a covering  
of leaves and branches suddenly flared red and disintegrated, as dark  
orange flames erupted outward in a fierce blaze of heat.  
  
When the ashes cleared, it revealed a figure in a long red cloak leaning  
against the bough of the tree. Whoever it was, had covered their head  
with the hood so that their face could not be seen.  
  
"Blaine?" Misty exclaimed. "But I killed you!"  
  
The red cloaked figure walked along the branch like a tight-rope walker,  
cloak flapping around in the high altitude winds. "And that's why *I*  
have ta kill ya, darlin." She whipped off her hood, revealing a pretty  
woman's face with blue hair tied in a bun at the back of her head. Her  
eyes flared the colour of fire.  
  
Ash grunted from underneath, still hanging on to Misty's arm. "Lara  
Larame. I should have known you would show up sooner or later."  
  
"Yup. Can't just let ya'll go after having gone and offed my husband."  
She clicked her tongue. "O' course, Ash here bein an ol friend o' mine  
means I have to spare him, no matter what Lord Gary-boy says, but you my  
dear," she stuck her thumb in Misty's direction, "you my dear gets ta be  
the first one killed by tha new, improved Fire Master." She lifted her  
hands which burst into flame when she pointed them at Misty. Out of the  
fires in each hand, a long bow emerged made completely of flame. An arrow  
materialised inside it and she nocked it, preparing to fire.  
  
Ash coughed. "Sorry, Lara, but I can't let you. Pikachu, Quick Attack!"  
  
"Pika!"  
  
Ash's black electric mouse leapt from his backpack and shot forth like a  
bullet. Lara was startled as it smashed through the join of the branch  
she was standing on, completely removing it from its connection to the  
tree. As she was distracted by having to jump off the severed wooden  
limb, which began to fall down to the ground like a rock, Misty quickly  
swung Ash up on to the branch with a flick of her arm. Then she followed  
him, swinging around and hoisting herself up.  
  
Lara did a half twist in the air and landed upon a different branch.  
"Sneaky lil people, aren't yas?" Her hand began moving in a blur as she  
shot fire arrow after fire arrow at them with loud whooshing sounds as  
they streaked forth.  
  
Misty leapt right, while Ash leapt left, after Pikachu, who had landed  
on another tree after its attack on the new Fire Master. The tree they  
had been standing on, glowed red before it disintegrated as a volley of  
arrows thunked into the wood.  
  
Misty dived as she fell through the air and caught on to a lower branch  
with her hands and pulled herself up. She reached within her cloak for a  
poke ball. Then Ash startled her as he suddenly jumped on to the same  
branch with Pikachu following, causing it to sway up and down.  
  
"Don't bother fighting," he said quickly. "Let's just get to the base.  
The coast is only about less than a mile from here where you said it was.  
If we expend more power, you know what that attracts."  
  
Misty stopped reaching for a poke ball. "I suppose you're right."  
  
"Counter attack only, and only with physical blows." He turned his head.  
"Jump!" They jumped and scattered as another volley of arrows vapourised  
the tree they were standing on.  
  
Misty kept going and leapt from tree to tree, fleeing east, her blue  
cloak flapping behind her at each jump. "Of course, that doesn't stop her  
from using her powers," she said jealously as each tree behind her flared  
and disintegrated with Lara using her as target practise.  
  
Ash and Pikachu followed her a bit to the side using different trees and  
branches to jump from as the ones Misty was using were quickly destroyed  
in her wake. "I'm sure they've protected themselves from it happening to  
them," Ash called back, grunting as he leapt and ducked from low-hanging  
branches. "Or maybe they just don't care."  
  
An angry voice shouted from behind them. "So we're playin it this way are  
we?" Lara said as she stopped following them and suddenly halted her  
stream of arrows. "Well far be it for lil ol me to get tired from chasin  
you! Rapidash, darlin, stop them!"  
  
"Uh oh," Ash said as he stopped and crouched on a branch while Pikachu  
landed by his side.  
  
Misty also paused upon a branch and crouched low to the tree limb. She  
looked back at him, one eyebrow raised. "Uh oh? And what's a Rapidash  
going to do when we're way up here?"  
  
"Lara's Rapidash is different ..."  
  
"How different?"  
  
The sound of a horse neighing and fire roaring from in front of them  
interrupted her. She turned around and widened her eyes. A wave of fire  
seemed to be sweeping directly towards them along the tops of the trees.  
  
"Jump!" Ash shouted from behind her, and she was happy to do just that.  
As she leaped up into the air, the horizontal stream of flames just  
missed from melting her boots. When the flame cut out and she landed back  
on a different tree, she spotted the offending fire horse, looking for  
all the world like it was running through air towards them, its single  
sharp horn lowered in a charge. Its mane of orange and red flames  
flickered in the wind and its elegant white body thrust powerfully as it  
moved its legs. Then as it came closer and directly into her line of  
sight, Misty realised that it wasn't actually running in midair, but was  
flying, using its two large, red feathered wings that were attached to  
its torso. The wings beat strongly up and down as it began flying faster.  
  
"Poor Rapidash was just crushed when y'all went and killed her mate!  
Reminds me I have ta find the blue-haired harlot as well! But you'll do  
to whet our appetites in the meantime, Mistaria, darlin gal!"  
  
The winged Rapidash let out a cry of hate as it dived at Misty, red wings  
rearing back so that it sped up. But then it stopped short and tried to  
fly away as a severed piece of a tree trunk came flying up at it and  
skimmed it on the leg.  
  
Misty turned and saw Ash punch through another tree top with a loud  
splintering sound, knocking it up at the flying Rapidash, who this time  
dodged it cleanly. "Keep going!" he yelled. "I'll distract it! Pikachu,  
Agility now! Combine with Swift!" He picked up his pokemon in one hand  
and then threw it up high. In the air, Pikachu blurred so fast, it  
resembled a miniature black comet. The Rapidash neighed in pain as  
Pikachu shot through the tip of its left wing, breaking off a chunk of  
red feathers. It stalled in the air and was about to fall when it  
regenerated its wing with a burst of flame and managed to recover.  
  
"Drat," Ash cursed. "I forgot it could do that."  
  
Misty looked at him. "If you're going to stay, then I will too!" she  
shouted.  
  
Ash began jumping from branch to branch towards her. "Don't be a fool!  
Let's just get out of here then!"  
  
The Fire Master clicked her fingers in a pique. "Land sakes, I was hoping  
you would stand and fight! Good one, Ash," she called out sarcastically.  
Then she whistled. "Rapidash, c'mon darlin!" At her call, her pokemon  
snorted a cloud of smoke before it flapped its wings and flew over to  
her. Lara jumped on to its back as it passed and then wheeled her mount  
around to attack. "Fire Spin!" she ordered.  
  
Misty dropped off the branch she was standing on and hung down low with  
her arms letting the circular tornado of fire pass harmlessly above her.  
Then swinging around like a professional gymnast, she swung herself  
upwards directly at Lara riding the flying Rapidash. She reached into the  
folds of her cloak and grasped a blue poke ball and threw it.  
  
"Go Vaporeon! Quick Attack!"  
  
The ball split open in midair with a flash of cold artic energy and  
revealed the blue four-legged and sharp finned marine pokemon with black  
circular eyes. "Vee!" it shouted as it used the momentum of Misty's throw  
to launch itself up at the Rapidash.  
  
"Rapidash, Flamethrower!" Lara countered. But Misty's Vaporeon seemed to  
shrug off the tongue of flame that the horse expelled, before it got a  
solid strike at its mid section. The Rapidash floundered in the air and  
began to weave out of control.  
  
As it lost altitude so that it began flying around the level of the  
branches that Ash and Misty were standing on, Misty ordered her Vaporeon  
to attack again. She pointed. "Vaporeon, Tackle that tree!"  
  
Her pokemon complied and it knocked the tree directly at Lara and her  
Rapidash. The flying horse, still out of control, was unable to burn the  
thick trunk of wood before it hit, sending it further of course.  
  
"Good work, Misty!" Ash said as he saw what she was doing. "Pikachu,  
Quick Attack those trees!" Then he too joined in, sending trunks of wood  
like spears with massive double handed swings of his arms.  
  
"No fair, that's cheating!" Lara yelled as a veritable avalanche of wood  
landed on top of her and her pokemon. She, along with the tangle of her  
horse and trees began to fall to the ground like a torn paper aeroplane.  
  
"That should keep her busy," Ash said as he leaned over the edge of the  
branch he was standing on to watch them fall until the darkness below  
swallowed them.  
  
"Now let's get to the base," Misty suggested as she lifted her hand. A  
blue poke ball materialised on her palm in a flash of light. "Vaporeon,  
return!"   
  
After she recalled her pokemon, the two of them continued east until the  
forest began to thin out. Then they jumped down from branch to branch  
until they reached the ground and ran the rest of the way.  
  
  
  
  
  
Lara grunted to herself as she rubbed a bruise on her breast. "Of all the  
dirty tricks," she grumbled as she wheeled her Rapidash around in the air  
to retrace her path yet again to search for her quarry. Then she noticed  
three cloaked figures standing on an upper branch. She spurred her mount  
onwards and floated in front of them, the wings of her horse beating up  
and down steadily. It caused the branch to sway up and down, rustling the  
leaves from the wind it was creating. "So y'all finally made it," she  
said impatiently.  
  
The Master in brown looked towards the edge of the forest where it ended  
and the coast began. "You could have waited before trying to do it all  
yourself. Not all of us can fly."  
  
The giant in the yellow cloak and the slim woman in the dark purple one  
stayed silent.  
  
"I think I lost them, though," Lara said, a bit embarrassed.  
  
Brock closed his eyes and felt the air. After a few minutes he opened  
them. "No matter. I know where he is."  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash stared out at the huge black waves of the ocean as they crashed upon  
the rocky shore off in the distance. There used to be a massive fishing  
wharf here, he remembered. But now, all it was, were sharp rocks that  
would slice you to ribbons if you foolishly tried to walk along them.  
Trying to fish there at present times were only for people with  
death-wishes.  
  
They were in a small clearing within a grove of trees with Misty kneeling  
down on the sandy ground by his side. She was still fiddling around with  
what seemed like an ordinary seeming shrub. "I could have sworn it was  
this one," she mumbled to herself.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked.  
  
Suddenly the shrub slid to the side and a metallic, circular trapdoor  
revealed itself underneath. Misty placed her hand on a square panel on  
the top of it and he heard a beeping sound.  
  
"Identification scan confirmed. Welcome Mistaria," a small electronic  
voice said. It reminded Ash of his pokedex. Then the steel door hissed  
with steam as it made a clicking sound. Misty grabbed the edge and  
roughly forced it wide open with a creaking of metal.  
  
"You first," she announced, waving him in.  
  
"And I thought chivalry was dead," Ash said dryly as he walked over and  
looked inside the opening. There was a ladder that he saw was attached to  
the side of the shaft leading all the way down into the narrow vertical  
passageway.  
  
"Well I've got to close the hatch afterwards," Misty explained. She  
noticed him looking hesitantly at the dark entrance. "It may look like  
you're climbing into Hell, but trust me, it gets better at the bottom."  
  
"Trust. That's a good one," he said sarcastically.  
  
Soon, Ash lay against the metallic wall at the bottom of the shaft, tired  
and breathing hard as Misty climbed down from the ladder herself. Pikachu  
leaned against his feet also panting heavily. He looked around the narrow  
corridor they were in. Amazingly, there was electric lighting brightening  
up the underground hallway, the light reflecting off the shiny floor and  
walls.  
  
Misty threw her hood back and freed her long red hair from its   
constraints. She looked exhausted and vulnerable. "Do you think we lost   
them?" she asked, blowing away a strand of hair that fell in her mouth.  
  
"I hope so, or we just led them directly to us." He frowned as he looked  
down at the shaft of the arrow still sticking out of his shoulder. Then  
gritting his teeth, he grasped it firmly in his hand and yanked it out.  
The sharp knife of pain that stabbed through his shoulder was terrible  
but he resisted making any sound. He threw the red shaft on to the metal  
floor where it clattered around rolling until it hit the wall. His  
shoulder bled profusely until his healing factor kicked in and stopped it  
from flowing too heavily.  
  
Misty leaned forward and examined the wound. "That looks bad. But I'm  
sure we can have a medic look at-"  
  
"Cease and desist!" a rough voice shouted. "Up with your hands, you two!"  
  
Ash sighed as he spotted the group of guards dressed in purple uniform  
come running down the passageway toward them with a pair of Venomoths  
flying silently at their sides. Their boots hardly made a sound on the  
hard floor but he still should have been able to detect them. It seemed  
his senses were still dulled like when he failed to detect Lara's  
presence earlier.  
  
Misty turned to face them, with an annoyed look in her blue eyes. "Don't  
you recognise me?"  
  
The guards stopped in front of them and looked confused. "Mistress  
Mistaria?"  
  
"Who were you expecting?"  
  
They rapidly lifted their weapons to the ready. "Imposter! Sound the  
alarm!" the lead guard shouted. A guard at the back, broke off from the  
group and ran back the way they came.  
  
Ash lifted himself up from leaning against the wall. "What's going on?"  
he asked as Misty was forced backward by pointed spears. The Venomoths  
hung in the air looking as if they were ready to attack them at any given  
moment, their powdery wings flapping threateningly.  
  
"Imposter?" Misty said, confused, as she lifted her hands, palms first,  
to show that she meant no harm.  
  
"That's right. The real Mistaria already arrived a half-day ago, hence.  
Right this moment, she is dining with Master's Erika, Koga and Aya.  
Therefore, you can't be her."  
  
Misty began to glow blue, her body giving off a cold arctic aura. "This  
is preposterous, is what this is! Get Erika here at once, she'll  
straighten this out!"  
  
Ash held his bleeding side with his hands, applying pressure. "A thought  
just came to me. What would Valdera look like with red hair?"  
  
Misty's eyes widened.  
  
"Now if someone could just lend me a medic," Ash said, just before he  
felt too weak to stand and fell backward in a faint. His mind descended  
blissfully to darkness.  
  
  
*** End Part 8  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Agility Swift  
Type : Psychic / Normal  
  
An attack combined of the two ordinary attacks, Agility and Swift.  
Pikachu gains godly amounts of speed and uses it for a powerful charge  
attack.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Comments & Criticisms would be much appreciated!  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	9. Restrictions

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Pokemon Master   
  
Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.  
  
All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm  
  
Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.  
  
*************************************************************************  
  
Part 9 - Restrictions  
  
  
A blanket of white light. Or red. As smooth as spun silk. A certain sense  
of violation. And pleasure. Illicitly vile. An unconscious recognition.  
And two thirds reunited.   
  
A soul was bound.   
  
Or freed.  
  
  
  
  
  
The forest ground was damp underneath Duplica's chest; the moistness  
slighty soaking through her underclothes and cloak as she lay down hidden  
in the grassy underbrush. Quietly she observed the League soldiers step  
around their posts about twenty feet in front of her, down the slight  
inclination where the trees started to thin. Each of them held a small  
lamp in their hands to light their way and were silent as they performed  
their apparent guard duty. According to Laselle's time-piece earlier, it   
was about midnight, yet she couldn't tell the difference between the   
darkness now and the darkness earlier in the day.  
  
A stray breeze wafted the wet smell of leaves and other vegetation by   
her nose, also blowing a strand of dark-blue hair, that seemed black in   
the night, across her eye. She blinked at the ticklish sensation and   
willed it out of her face. The lock of hair moved of its own accord to   
settle itself around her left ear.  
  
"Another League army?" The soft voice, even though it was whispered,  
still startled the hell out of her.  
  
She turned her head to glare at the young dark-haired girl lying next to  
her. A glare that she knew was invisible in the night, but she felt   
better doing it anyway. It was hard to make her out at first, because   
even though she was quite near, the green and muddy forest cloak the girl  
was wearing blended in perfectly with the vegetation of the forest.  
"Geez!" she whispered as loud as she dared with the guards such a scant  
distance away. "Laselle, I thought I told you to wait with the others!"  
  
"Sorry," Laselle whispered back, although sounding completely  
unrepentant. "But I just couldn't stand waiting around doing nothing.  
Besides, spying is my specialty," she explained with a tinge of  
arrogance. "You didn't even notice me until I said something."  
  
Duplica was glad that Laselle wouldn't be able see her blush of  
embarrassment in the darkness. She turned back to observe the guards  
through the damp reeds she took cover in. "Well don't worry about it now.  
Anyway, yeah, there's a League army camped past those soldiers where the  
forest gets lighter. But judging from the number of campfires you can  
sort of spot, it doesn't seem to be too big a force. Maybe one hundred or  
so."  
  
The sound of Laselle swallowing came softly to her. "But I think we have  
even less than that back at the South Lavender base. Do-do you think that  
they might be heading there?"  
  
Duplica shifted a little, her breasts feeling a little sore now at the  
length of time she had been lying on her chest. She had been thinking  
about recalling them away as she watched, but then rejected the notion as  
it outraged her sense of vanity. She didn't want to be flat-chested, even  
for a second. "Well they are heading south-east," she replied a little  
testily. "In the exact direction we were heading too. Then again it could  
just be a coincidence."  
  
"Maybe," Laselle whispered. She sounded unconvinced.  
  
"You're right, I don't believe in coincidences either."  
  
Then a brash female voice in front of them said out loud, "I'm going  
off to the little girl's room! And don't any of you perverts follow!"  
  
Duplica turned back to see one of the female soldiers start walking  
towards them. She held her breath and heard Laselle do the same as the  
lightly-armoured figure passed within a few feet of them, holding her  
brightly-lit torch, and stalked off into the forest, the crackle of  
leaves and underbrush sounding at every step.  
  
"But I do believe in luck," Duplica said wickedly. She lifted herself up  
and gave a slight sigh of relief from her flattened breasts as she began  
to follow the soldier, low to the ground and slowly, so as not to make  
any noise. "Stay here and signal a pidgey's call if any of the other  
soldiers decide to follow."  
  
"Okay," Laselle agreed as she turned back to watching the remaining  
guards.  
  
By the time Duplica caught up, the soldier-woman was already squatting  
by a tree. The sound of trickling liquid on leaves was astonishingly  
loud in the quiet of the dark forest.  
  
"Ahhhhhh," the woman was sighing, not noticing her, as Duplica crouched  
unseen behind a tree trunk.  
  
Duplica then allowed the image of an ekans snake concentrate in her mind.  
Breathing softly, she let the perception of it fill her entire being and  
felt the familiar warmth of metamorphosis as her body shifted into the  
desired form. Shrinking low to the ground, she slithered along the  
forest floor, her forked tongue flicking. Then rapidly, she arose and  
stared the woman in the eye. The sound of trickling liquid abruptly  
stopped.  
  
Her eyes glowed yellow in a Glare attack. The woman didn't even get to  
make a sound before she was wide-eyed and paralysed, still squatting next  
to the tree with her pants down. As Duplica returned back to human form,  
the woman soldier in front of her seemed to be trying to talk, her lips  
quivering, but it was useless.  
  
Duplica reached up over her head and ripped down some thick green vines  
that were wrapped around the large trunk and soon the woman was tied up  
against the tree, still in a squatting position. The Glare had stiffened  
her muscles so Duplica wouldn't have been able to move her into a less  
embarrassing position even if she wanted.  
  
"I'll send someone to take care of you later," Duplica whispered. The  
woman seemed to stare at her hard and even though she could barely move a  
muscle, she still managed to look absolutely furious.  
  
"Now, now, human Glares don't work," Duplica said in a smart-ass tone.  
"Now stay still while I have a look at you," she ordered with an ironic  
twist to her lips. She looked the soldier over carefully, determined not  
to miss a detail. Chain-mail shirt and breeches modified for a woman, a  
brown forest cloak with the emblem of the Pokemon League on it, black  
leather knee-high boots, a doll-like pretty face with china-blue eyes and  
medium-length green hair ... she concentrated and her body warmed again  
as it changed.  
  
The woman looked even more shocked, if that was possible, due to her  
paralysed face, as she ended up looking at her exact twin with identical  
clothes. Duplica picked up the lamp the woman left behind and hurried  
back.  
  
It was fortunate that Laselle didn't cry out when she saw her before she  
told her who she was. She had probably already guessed what she intended  
to do; Laselle was a smart girl for her age. "I'm going to find out for  
sure where this army's going," Duplica whispered in the brash voice the  
soldier woman had. "You go back to Bruno and Junior and I'll meet up with  
you later and tell you what's going on. You'll find the woman tied to a  
tree, take her with you. I wouldn't want any Forbidden Pokemon to find  
her for a snack."  
  
Soon, Duplica-soldier-woman walked down past the guards and was let into  
the camp uncontested. She would find out just what was going on. And  
she hoped to do so before any Forbidden Pokemon showed up. A group of   
this size had to be attracting attention.  
  
  
  
  
  
Dizzy. The flat face of the table beneath her palms was blurring. As if  
she had been spinning around and around and around. It felt almost ...  
good. And then with the suddenness with which the feeling had come over  
her, it was just ... gone.  
  
"Misty, Misty ..."  
  
Someone was calling her name. She looked up slowly, eyes blinking,  
feeling as if she had just woken up. She brushed a lock of red hair from  
her cheek. "Wha-what?"   
  
It was Erika, her grass-green eyes looking worriedly at her from across  
the round table. "You just suddenly spaced out or something with a smile  
on your lips ..." Her friend, dressed in an emerald green dress, began to  
stand up, her just-shy-of-shoulder-length black hair tilting as she  
leaned forward. The bright electric lights shone on the strands revealing  
deep blue highlights contrasting against the red of her hair-band.  
  
"Remain seated." The low voice came from the tall man with black hair  
worn in spikes, sitting on the right side of the table. Thick slashing  
dark brows over sinister black eyes were calm as ever. Koga was the only  
one at the table still wearing his tight-fitting purple Master's cloak,  
although his thin hood was thrown back. Underneath, he wore a black tunic  
and matching loose trousers cinched in at the waist. Koga was a ninja,  
but to Misty he seemed more like a vampire.  
  
Erika frowned, but still continued to rise.  
  
Misty waved her friend back to her seat. "It's okay, Erika. I-I just   
felt a little weird, that's all."  
  
"It's not your wound, is it?" Erika asked as she sat back down.  
  
"I don't know. I don't think so. I think I'm pretty much healed."  
  
"Enough," an authoritive female voice said. It was Aya, Koga's sister,  
the second Poison Master. She was a mature woman with a sultry beauty,  
her dark-green hair still worn like she did in the old days in a high  
ponytail but tied back with a long black ribbon. The shade contrasted  
sharply with the pale milk-white of her skin while eyes matching the  
colour of her hair stared at her, full red lips pursed seriously. She was  
sitting on the table's left and was wearing a dark-pink kimono, the robes  
tightened, outlining her tall, athletic figure. "Now, as you were saying,  
Mistaria?" she inquired with a nod of her chin.  
  
Misty blinked and tried to remember what she had been saying. Then it all  
came back to her as well as the feeling of outrage. "That's right," she  
said dangerously. "I just heard that you've imprisoned Ash. How could  
you? While he's sick?"  
  
Aya's serious expression didn't change. "Now, Mistaria, you have to  
understand. We have been hearing outrageous news of your activities.  
Especially of the disaster at the Castle Town west of Cerulean. Did you  
know Ashura somehow decimated an army of over half a thousand men  
single-handedly? Letting an uncontrolled force like him loose would be  
foolhardy."  
  
"That was a League army!" Misty protested. "If nothing else, they  
deserved everything they got for the butchery they committed. You must   
have seen what they were doing to all the human settlements around that  
area. In fact, weren't Erika, you and your brother putting a stop to just  
that? I demand you set him free now!" Her blue eyes glowed icily.  
  
The soft hissing sound of the door to the meeting room sliding open  
interrupted them, and she turned her head to watch a slim, beautiful  
woman with long black hair, highlighted with brown, walk in confidently,  
the sound of her high-heels clicking on the metallic floor. Folds of her  
long white lab-coat floated behind her like a cape. In one hand she  
carried a small, rectangular electronic notebook and around her neck, she  
wore a silver stethoscope.  
  
"But that's just the thing," the woman said in a know-it-all tone as she  
came to a stop, standing by the table. "We shouldn't have been able to  
imprison him in the first place. The device we are using was designed for  
the entrapment and observation of hostile pokemon. Its technology is  
based on the old laser storage system of the poke-ball. It shouldn't work  
on humans. Yet it works on Ash. Interesting, no?"  
  
"Giselle," Misty said in an annoyed tone. "One unpleasant surprise after   
another."  
  
She laughed haughtily, her perfectly red-manicured nails tapping her  
shapely lower lip. "Flattery will get you nowhere. And that's *Doctor*  
Giselle. Now, as I was saying, the energy walls we've sealed him in can  
in fact be walked through by any human or inanimate object. Even air  
passes through. Yet it is impassable to pokemon and anything of pokemon  
construct. It seems Ash is under the same restraints."  
  
Erika frowned and twisted a strand of hair around her index finger. "I  
knew there was something strange about him. He may not even be human."  
  
Giselle shook her head, her long dark hair sliding around on the  
shoulders of her lab-coat. "No, he is human. I have run certain tests.  
The results may be contradicting, but he is definitely human. An  
exceptionally cute one too." She smiled suggestively.  
  
Misty daydreamed about wiping that smile off her face with a flying  
tackle. She resisted the urge with some effort. It wouldn't look very  
professional.  
  
"But he also passes the tests for pokemon," Giselle continued in her  
haughty voice. "And not just any pokemon, but he shows remarkable  
similarity to the *Forbidden* Pokemon the world is currently under siege  
of. His pikachu is the same. In fact, tests point that Pikachu *is* a  
Forbidden Pokemon. And our readings are off the scales when we try to  
measure their power."  
  
Misty stared hard at her. "Even if it is as you say, you have no right  
to lock him up like an animal for study. We have little enough time as it  
is to stop the prophecy from unfolding and Ash is at the centre of it.  
I'm sure of it. If anyone will be able to stop this, it will be him."  
  
Aya looked at her, dark-green eyes unblinking. "Explain."  
  
Misty told them what she had learned from Ash and exactly what the League  
had done. How they had set the prophecy of Armageddon in motion releasing  
the Forbidden into the world. And how they only had a few days left until  
the planet was completely overrun and all life on earth save the League  
would end. She was careful to omit Ash's participation though, and how he  
had somehow been mind-controlled.  
  
Koga, silent and listening, suddenly spoke up. "I know of the prophecy.  
It was, after all, extremely similar to how they were used in the Dark  
Wars although that was on a much smaller scale. How in the creation of  
the earth, the Creator sealed the failures of his makings in a place  
between worlds to punish them. Where the souls of all who die must pass.  
And how the world would end if they were ever released. What you say has  
an undeniable ring of truth to it."  
  
Misty hoped that he would take her side. Koga was the one who held the  
most influence out of the Rebellion. He commanded the most trainers and  
soldiers, with his sister as co-leader, between them.  
  
"Yet," he continued, "that does not change the fact that Ashura is an  
undeniable risk. An uncontrolled one. Too dangerous to let him loose. We  
will find some way to stop this ourselves. We will find some way to  
control his unpredictability and use his power somehow so that it is  
certain he will do greater good than harm. Maybe we can even set up  
Ashura and Lord Garick so they would destroy themselves and leave the  
world alone."  
  
Misty stood up, her chair making a screeching sound as it slid against  
the metal floor. The air around her abruptly grew cold with her aura.  
"You mean, use him like a weapon? One that you think you hold the trigger  
of?" Icicles formed on the edge of the table where she was holding it  
with both of her hands. "That's absurd! The only thing you'll succeed in  
doing is alienating him from the Rebellion as well as the League. I won't  
allow it!"  
  
Koga stared hard at her with his small black eyes. "Do not forget  
Mistaria, that you yourself have been questionable in these whole series  
of events. Both you *and* Ashura have somehow been involved in opening  
the gate at Cerulean. And you willingly alied yourself with him in the  
first place, a hostile entity that you had no hope of trusting. He is  
doubly a traitor, to the League as well as the Rebellion."  
  
No hope of trusting? She looked immediately across the table at her  
friend. Erika smiled at her and gave her a secret thumbs up. Misty  
inwardly sighed in relief. Erika had not told them of how she had forced  
Ash to do her bidding and likely Giselle hadn't discovered it either.  
  
Aya spoke up again. "And now you tell us that Brock is alive and has  
allied himself with the League. You understand that we are finding this  
very hard to believe. Brock as we've seen him was a devout follower to  
our cause for as long as his short life. There was more than one witness  
at his death, although admittedly his body was never recovered. But as  
such we will not believe this until there is solid proof."  
  
"This is crazy! What if Brock knew about this base before he left to the  
other side?" Misty felt the edge of the table grow brittle and break off  
in her hands. It fell to the ground where it made a clattering sound as  
it shattered into shards of ice. "And what about my sister? Don't you  
believe me about her as well? That at this very moment she is somewhere  
here probably on some mission of sabotage?"  
  
"Now that we believe," Giselle said dryly, still standing by the side of  
the table, her perfectly made-up face looking fascinated at the frozen  
bits of table on the ground. "We have video footage of your entrance at  
the seaside vertical shaft. And at the same time we were all talking to a  
woman who we thought was you. She looked exactly like you. The same voice  
as well." She frowned, tapping her lip in thought. "Unfortunately, by  
the time we realised our mistake, she had already disappeared."  
  
"But she didn't really act like you, come to think of it," Erika  
interjected. "For one thing, she was acting like a real conceited bitch.  
Kind of like Giselle." She grinned, her green eyes bright with mischief.  
  
Giselle frowned at her and tossed her long brown-black hair  
contemptuously.  
  
"But I can't believe that she saved my life, and my guards lives too."  
Erika told them about her encounter with the dark beedrills.  
  
Misty shook her head. "Well that was obviously just to use you to get  
inside."  
  
"Still, I kind of owe her one," Erika said, smiling at the ridiculousness  
of the situation. "But I can't believe the resemblance. She really does  
look like you with that red hair."  
  
Giselle pursed her red lips thoughtfully. "She passed the genetic match  
otherwise she wouldn't have gotten in so easily. It was how we detected  
your entrance so quickly, Ash's DNA code is not in the security system's  
database. I thought you said you weren't exact identical twins."  
  
"Well she has different hair doesn't she? She was born a blonde, like my  
oldest sister Daisy, while I'm a redhead. And she always looked  
different, at least to me."  
  
"Maybe we should have had a strip-test," Erika said, smiling a bit. "The  
hair below does not lie."  
  
"Please, save the gutter humour," Giselle said in an acid tone.  
  
Erika moved as if to pull down the white short-skirt that Giselle wore  
underneath her lab-coat.  
  
Giselle dodged her outstretched hand. "Don't you dare!"  
  
"Maybe you're naturally pink, Giselle?" Erika asked curiously.  
  
Koga finally stood up, sliding his chair back in a rapid movement, a  
fed-up expression on his face. "Cease!"  
  
Erika and Giselle fell silent.  
  
He turned his intense black stare on Misty. "Now, be that as it may, we  
now have a hostile Pokemon Master walking these underground tunnels. One  
who at first and second glance is an exact replica of you. Therefore, the  
only logical thing to do would be to confine you to your chambers so that  
any sign of you outside will result in the imposter being found out  
immediately. You will be guarded and put under lock and key within your  
chambers until this matter with your sister is resolved."  
  
Misty felt so frustrated, she was grinding her teeth. "That isn't fair!"  
she protested. Then she remembered something and her stomach dropped out  
from beneath her, suddenly feeling sick. She had to remove the poison  
from Ash's body now that they were at South Lavender like they had agreed  
to do earlier! Tomorrow would be the seventh day. But she couldn't tell  
Koga and the rest about what she had done. She would have to do something  
about it soon...  
  
Then Koga whipped around and began to stalk out of the chamber, the folds  
of his purple cloak floating behind him. "Consider it also a penance for  
not consulting us before planning what you did."  
  
Aya also stood up, her face still serious as she looked at her. "Off to  
your room immediately. The soldiers outside will escort you and guard  
your doors. This base is under full alert until we find the hostile  
Pokemon Master." Her dark-green eyes swivelled to Giselle. "And you,  
return to your experiments. We want to know every single thing there is  
to know about this Shadow Master." And then she followed her brother out  
of the door. The metal doors hissed closed with a snap at their exit.  
  
Giselle's annoyingly beautiful face suddenly smirked as she turned to  
Misty. "Now I know why you were so hot and heavy with Ash back then. Of  
course it's no surprise since he was already so cute when I first met you  
back at Pokemon Tech. He showed a lot of promise." A corner of her lip  
turned up lasciviously. "And you know what they say, there is no such  
thing as modesty between a doctor and her patient."  
  
Misty felt her face flush. She hoped her face didn't match the redness of  
her hair. "You're nothing but a sick voyeur as far as I'm concerned."  
Then she bit her lower lip in worry. "B-But ... how is he?"  
  
Giselle shrugged her slender shoulders underneath the white lab-coat.  
"Well his condition is stable. He seems to have a remarkable rate of  
physical healing. It's just that his energy levels seem to be fluctuating  
strangely. As can be guessed, the pikachu is the same way." She frowned  
as if annoyed. "Although I'm not entirely sure what is causing the  
disturbance. My closest guess would be that it is some sort of psychic  
imbalance."  
  
"He's not going crazy is he?" Erika asked worriedly, sliding her chair  
backward as she stood up.  
  
"Who knows?" She shuddered delicately. "But I think I'm actually glad  
that they've decided to confine him for the moment." Then she smirked at  
Misty again. "But maybe I might try him out for myself anyway. When the  
rules were 'look but don't touch' I always ended up breaking them." She  
let out an arrogant laugh. "After all, you did break up with him years  
ago, so he's single, right?"  
  
Misty narrowed her eyes and tweaked the moisture on the air around  
her slightly.  
  
"Ow!" Giselle almost leapt up clutching her bottom. Her light-brown eyes  
were offended as she stared at her as she rubbed her behind. Then she  
lifted her chin and somehow managed to look down her nose at them even  
though both Misty and Erika were a tad taller than her. "Humph! Immature  
girls, the lot of you!" Then she stalked off, still rubbing herself, as  
the metallic sliding doors hissed open at her approach. The guards posted  
outside the doors stared at her bottom as she passed them as if they  
wanted to be the ones rubbing. Then the doors slid shut again.  
  
The smell of flowers pervaded the room as green energy flashed along  
Erika's body forming into her long cloak. Then she looked at her, an  
eyebrow tilted upward as she pulled the hood over her head, shadowing  
her face within its depths.  
  
Misty shrugged innocently as she also formed her cloak over her body, the  
blue liquid-like energy shimmering around her before it solidified into  
soft material. "It's not my fault the flies are biting again."  
  
  
  
  
  
"Pika pika!"  
  
The first thing that Ash saw as he opened his eyes was Pikachu's round  
blue eyes staring frantically down at him as he sat on Ash's naked chest.  
Ash carefully sat up, placing the black electric mouse next to him on the  
bed. The bed. So that's why it was so soft. But he didn't understand why  
he felt even weaker than when he had been lying on the stone floor of the  
cave. He hoped it didn't become a habit.  
  
"Where are we?" he asked, his voice a bit hoarse. He coughed to clear his  
throat as he turned to observe his surroundings. It looked like an  
ordinary hospital room, save that it was totally enclosed by some sort of  
red-tinged field of energy. Even the floor seemed to be covered with it.  
Over by the far side of the enclosed room was a small white lavatory and  
sink. Other than that, the room was pretty bare. He couldn't see his  
backpack or cloak anywhere. The only thing he had on were his loose black  
long pants, cinched in tightly at the waist.  
  
Pikachu leapt off the bed and ran the dozen feet to the red barrier. He  
tapped it with a paw. "Pikapi pi-pikachu!" he said, his pointed ears laid  
angrily flat against the top of his head.  
  
"What? You say this is like inside of a poke-ball? But stronger?" He  
twisted himself around on the bed and slowly stood up. The floor felt  
warm and seemed to vibrate beneath his bare feet. For a moment he  
felt dizzy and almost fell over, but at the last instant he gained his  
equilibrium and managed to stand up straight. He didn't feel too good. He  
was sore all over, especially in his wounded shoulder, and something on  
the side of his back stung. Carefully lifting his arm slightly and  
turning his head, he saw a line of scratches that were bleeding.  
How did I get those, he wondered. Then he checked his arrow wound  
underneath the bandage covering it and found it had healed, but not as  
much as it should have by now.  
  
He walked slowly over to Pikachu's side, careful not to walk too fast and  
dizzy himself. The red energy barrier was more transparent closer up, and  
he could see what looked like a laboratory outside, many computers and  
monitor screens, switchboards, consoles, the types of things Professor  
Oak had in his lab before it was destroyed, except more advanced.  
  
He narrowed his eyes when he saw his backpack, open and obviously looked  
through, sitting on a table. Hung up on a swivel-seat next to it was  
his black cloak.  
  
"Chuu."   
  
Ash looked down at his pokemon to see him glow dark and shoot a thin  
Thundershock out of his paw and at the wall. But the small spark of  
lightning just seemed to, not so much as get absorbed into it, but was  
just nullified.  
  
"So we're trapped here, huh?" He pressed his right hand into the red  
translucent barrier and tested its strength. It felt just as warm as the  
floor and also seemed to vibrate slightly beneath his palm. Then in the  
back of his mind, he sensed someone coming and dropped his hand from the  
energy barrier. Thankfully, it seemed his senses were slightly recovered,  
at least to the point where he could detect people.  
  
There was a click and a hiss as the wall on the far side of the lab slid  
open and a tall brunette dressed in a white lab-coat stepped through, the  
sound of her high-heels clicking on the hard laboratory floor.  
  
"Ah, my patient is finally awake!" she said in a suggestive tone. As she  
stepped closer, Ash noticed how perfectly beautiful she was, like the  
cold beauty of a model. Yet he wasn't particularly affected by it since  
he had long since been desensitised to beauty. Mostly. There was also a  
familiar look to her face, doubly familiar for some reason.  
  
"Where's Misty?" was the first question he asked, surprising himself.  
"And why am I being held here?"  
  
"Pika-chu," Pikachu added by his feet, a cross tone in his cute voice.  
  
She seemed to lower her brown-eyed gaze from his face to his bare chest.  
Her full red lips tilted as if she found something amusing. He shivered  
inwardly at her gaze, feeling uncomfortable, like a slab of meat she  
wouldn't mind devouring. "You're under confinement at the strict order of  
Master's Koga and Aya. They don't precisely trust you. As for Misty ..."  
She shrugged, lifting her gaze back to his face and leaning her head  
sideways a bit as if to study him. "Well that's unimportant." She played  
with the stethoscope at her neck, swinging it around in little circles  
around her finger.  
  
Ash looked around again and then laughed without any humour. "I should  
have known this would happen. I guessed it, but I was thinking that they  
might have lost their prejudice against me by now."  
  
She paused. "Well aren't you going to ask me who I am?" she inquired  
in a piqued tone. "We *have* met before, you know. Although, admittedly,  
it has been some time ..."  
  
He turned back to her and blinked. "You really do look familiar." Then a  
blurred picture formed in his mind. "Wait, I know you now ... some school  
called Pokemon Wreck ... your name is Giraffe or something, isn't it?"  
  
Startlingly, her face filled with red, a flush starting from her  
neckline, slowly climbing upwards. "I am *not* a Giraffe. My name is  
*Giselle* and it was *Pokemon Tech* not Pokemon Wreck."   
  
She was so highly indignant, that Ash unwittingly stepped backward even  
though the red barrier was between them. "Oh ... Giselle was it?" he said  
lamely.  
  
Then she seemed to calm down, her flushed face regaining its normal milky  
colour. "Yes, people call me a star ... but I'm just Giselle." She smiled  
slowly. "Anyway, let's take a look at you." She took a small computer  
notebook out of a pocket in her coat and plugged it in a console by the  
barrier. "My, my, you do have an astonishing healing factor," she  
commented as her fingers flew over the keys and stared at the small  
monitor.  
  
"How long has it been since I collapsed?" Ash asked, trying to change the  
subject.  
  
She didn't look at him, still studying her computer as she answered. "Oh,  
it's about two in the morning, so that would make it about five hours."  
  
Then he sensed someone else approaching and he turned to see the metal  
doors slide open again with a hiss of air. This time it was a young man  
in a white lab-coat who walked in. He had neatly combed brown hair and  
wore a pair of glasses over his plain face. He also looked familiar.  
  
"Doctor Giselle," he said in a reverent tone, "You're wanted at Medic Bay  
number three immediately. Doctor Proctor needs you." Ash could see that  
the young man was obviously attracted to her by the way he shifted from  
foot to foot and had a nervous look in his dark eyes.  
  
Giselle lifted her nose away from her computer and looked haughtily at  
him. "Can't you see I'm busy right now, Joe? You're an intern, you take  
care of it," she said arrogantly. "My time is precious and I have orders  
to study this highly attractive specimen here." She pointed at him. Ash  
folded his arms and pretended not to be listening.  
  
Joe's gaze followed her finger. Immediately, a look of jealousy and hate  
flowed over his features. "All monsters are ugly," he stated in a tight  
voice. "And that's what he is. Some of the guards and trainers are saying  
that he even summoned those Forbidden Pokemon here. And do you even know  
how many people he's killed? Why, one of the Fight Trainers I talked to  
said he was nothing but a torturer and a murderer."  
  
Giselle turned to Ash and squinted her light-brown eyes at him. "Ugly?  
Maybe you should get your prescription on those glasses checked,  
Joey-boy."  
  
Joe flushed in embarrassment. "Anyway, Doctor Proctor said it was  
important so I think you better go."  
  
"Okay, already," Giselle said in an annoyed tone. "You obviously need me  
to do every little thing for you." She closed her notebook computer and  
unplugged it from the console. "Don't touch anything while I'm gone," she  
ordered as she walked rapidly away and through the doors which hissed  
open at her approach then closed behind her after with a click after she  
walked through.  
  
After a while, Joe turned back to him from staring at Giselle as she left  
the laboratory. His face screwed up in anger. "You-you monster! Stay away  
from Giselle, you hear me?"  
  
"Um, that's a little hard, don't you think?" Ash asked blandly, waving  
his hand at the barrier.  
  
Joe paused at that and got a confused look on his face. Then he shook his  
head. "Stop trying to confuse me, monster! Your evil tricks won't work on  
me."  
  
Ash sighed and decided not to say anything. Likely anything he said would  
probably just confuse him even more. Was love some sort of excuse to act  
incredibly stupid?  
  
Joe's eyes lit up behind his glasses as he spotted Ash's black cloak  
hanging on the seat. He walked over to it and picked it up, the thick  
folds of black material rippling like a live shadow.  
  
"I wouldn't touch that," Ash warned.  
  
Joe laughed, a high irritating sound, as he lifted the cloak high with  
both his hands to look at it in the light. "And what are you going to do  
about it, monster? I'm out here and you're in there." He smiled,  
superior-like, as he draped it along his shoulders and pulled the thick  
hood over his head. But the cloak didn't really fit him as he was too  
short, the folds dragging on the ground past his feet. "Look at me!" he  
shouted in a mocking tone. "I'm the evil Shadow Master come to get you!  
The shadow who eats children at night if you've been a bad little boy or  
girl!"  
  
"Take it off," Ash said, his voice turning dangerous now. He blew a  
strand of hair out of his eye with a tilt of his lips.  
  
Joe was prancing around the laboratory like an idiot, whipping the cloak  
around at each step melodramatically. "I bet you I could be a Shadow  
Master, much better than you could ever be, you stupid traitor."  
  
Ash's eyes flared golden, an unholy light emanating from his pupils to  
cover even the whites of his eyes.  
  
Joe screamed as the cloak glowed black then crackled with powerful  
dark electricity. His body jerked backwards and forwards as the sound of  
thunder boomed extraordinarily loud within the enclosed laboratory. And  
then the cloak just exploded into thin air like a balloon popping. Joe  
was thrown backward to land on his back on the hard floor, sliding  
crazily until the wall of a console stopped him. For a moment he just lay  
there smoking. Then he cried as he ripped off his glasses which had begun  
melting down his nose. He sat up with fire in his dark eyes, his brown  
hair burnt in several places and still sticking up and popping with left  
over static electricity.  
  
"It's fortunate that I pity you, otherwise you'd just be a puddle of red  
slime swimming on the floor." Ash shook his head, still with his arms  
folded across his bare chest.  
  
"Pika pika pika!" Pikachu laughed, his blue eyes closed from hilarity as  
he rolled around on his back, paws in the air.  
  
"I'm going to kill you!" Joe spat as he stood up and reached within his  
slightly burnt lab-coat to remove a poke-ball. He threw it. "Victreebel,  
go! Razor Leaf! Cut him to shreds!"  
  
The red and white ball split open in mid-air with a flash of red energy.  
From within the opened sphere, the yellow tubular, plant-like pokemon  
came forth, its sharp teeth snapping and its green vines and leaves  
whipping. It let out a growling sound and blade-like foliage began to  
shoot out from its torso, spinning around like shurikens.  
  
Ash calmly stayed still, his face a few inches behind the barrier as  
the leaves bounced off the red-tinged energy with no effect. He didn't  
even blink.  
  
"You shit!" Joe yelled, recalling his pokemon back into its ball and  
throwing it aside furiously. He obviously remembered that the barrier was  
impassable for all pokemon and their attacks. "That energy field won't  
help you from a beating!" He ran berserk towards him, a fist  
outstretched.  
  
Ash didn't move until Joe's arm passed through the red energy as if it  
wasn't there. Then casually, almost lazily, he lifted one arm to  
intercept it, tightly grabbing Joe's wrist in his grip. Spinning smoothly  
to the side, he used Joe's momentum against him, jerking his arm upward.  
Joe gasped as he flew upwards feet first, being swung overhead like a  
throwing hammer. As he passed above him, Ash let go of his arm and  
watched as Joe sailed through the air like a mis-thrown javelin. He spun  
crazily around, passed through the red energy barrier at the other side,  
and landed on a wheeled computer console with a loud sparking crash. The  
console tipped backward at the collision and dumped him unceremoniously  
on to the floor. His body was unmoving, this time unconscious.  
  
Then the door slid open with a hiss and Giselle walked back in, whistling  
a jaunty tune. She stopped as she observed the carnage, eyes widening.  
She turned accusingly to Ash.  
  
Ash blinked innocently. "Don't look at me. Joe was the one you told not  
to touch anything."  
  
  
  
  
  
"So, Tyra, wanna have some action later on after we destroy that Rebel  
base?"  
  
Duplica didn't even look at the punkish soldier striding next to her as  
they marched onward through the forest. "Get lost, bozo," she said in the  
brash tone she assumed the soldier-woman always used.  
  
The punkish soldier looked disappointed. "But we always get it on after a  
successful battle." He fell back to walk with the other male soldiers.  
  
Geez, Duplica thought. This Tyra woman sure was the easy sort. That had  
been the seventh guy that had pretty much said the same thing to her  
already. She supposed the woman looked nice enough with her long green  
hair and tough body, but Duplica thought a little vainly that her  
blue-haired and slender but voluptuous body looked much better.  
  
The wagon wheels creaked next to her as the procession of the army train  
headed onward to the east through the dark forest. Only the lamps  
attached to the wagons, and those being carried by various soldiers like  
herself, allowed enough light for travelling. Right now, she walked with  
the half-dozen or so supply wagons being pulled along by ponyta fire  
horses. The cracking of the whips by the drivers sounded every so often  
and the neighing of horses was loud in the comparative stillness of the  
trees around them.  
  
As the shadow of the tip of the Pokemon Tower far to the north of the  
Rebel base grew ever more visible over the tops of the trees and against  
the backdrop of the swirling blue-black sky, Duplica had now been sure  
for quite some time that they were indeed heading directly towards the  
South Lavender Rebellion base. The wide trail they were travelling  
through lead more or less on a collision course directly towards it. And  
the little she had heard from the other soldiers of the upcoming battle  
was further confirmation.  
  
Feeling that she had learned enough from the soldiers back here, Duplica  
decided to move onward toward the front of the army train. She needed  
more information on just how they had found out the location of the  
Rebels and she figured that whoever was in charge of the army was most  
likely riding at the head. She started walking faster to overtake the  
wagons.  
  
"Where are ya goin, toots?" a testosterone-filled voice called out from  
behind her.  
  
She didn't turn her head as she walked further up, the dirt of the path  
rising up behind her boots. "I feel like rootin the boss." That seemed  
like something 'Tyra' would say.  
  
"You're an asshole, Tyra." The voice sounded jealous.  
  
"Yeah, I got a reason." Duplica chuckled. "You're contagious."  
  
She left them behind to splutter at her back as she walked faster. Then  
as she was about to pass the lead wagon, she heard a whispering through  
the canvas wall. "Damn these chains," a familiar female voice cursed. "If  
I was free, Joylene, I'd show these League scum..."  
  
Shocked, Duplica edged closer to the wagon's side and lifted a flap in  
the wall. She stuck her head through and looked around. Sure enough,  
Captain Jenny and Nurse Joy from the Castle town were being held captive  
within. Jenny, still in her light armour-uniform and Joylene in her long  
white dress, although looking a little worse for wear, were chained up to  
the floor of the wagon by their wrists.  
  
Jenny turned hostile maroon eyes on her. Her short blue hair was a bit  
rumpled and blood-stained as if someone had clubbed her. The helmet that  
she always wore was nowhere to be seen. "What are you looking at League  
bitch?" she asked in an acidic tone.  
  
"Jenny," Nurse Joy warned, her long red ponytail beginning to get undone,  
long strands escaping around her shoulders.  
  
Duplica allowed her true voice to speak from her mouth. "It's me," she  
whispered in a sassy tone. "Duplica."  
  
Nurse Joy's eyes widened, recognising the voice. "One of the Pokemon  
Masters back in town?"  
  
Jenny looked shocked but didn't say anything. As soon as she heard her  
name her eyes had widened and her expression turned more than a little  
uneasy. The Captain of the guards had been more than a little unnerved of  
her as soon as she saw how Duplica could manipulate the form of her body.  
Unnatural, she called it.  
  
"Yeah, kind of," Duplica answered. "I'm just using this form so I can spy  
easier. Anyway, how did you get captured? Where are the rest of your  
soldiers?"  
  
Jenny seemed to get incredibly angry, forgetting about her uneasiness  
around her. "It was a stinking ambush! We were passing through the forest  
when League Trainers and soldiers just popped out from the sides, waiting  
for us." Then her anger just seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon  
and she looked like she was just barely stopping herself from bursting  
out crying. "They killed all our men, leaving only us alive." She laughed  
bitterly. "Probably because we're female and they might want to 'use' us  
later."  
  
Joylene looked worried. "They confiscated our pokemon too. I do hope  
Chansey is alright."  
  
"Don't worry about a thing," Duplica said confidently. "After I find out  
what I need to know, I'll bust you out. Maybe even find your pokemon."  
Then she slipped out from underneath the canvas flap quickly. It wouldn't  
do for her to be discovered talking to the prisoners.  
  
On quiet feet she hurried forward towards the front of the army, passing  
riders on horses and marching men, trying to walk past unnoticed. That  
was one thing about being an attractive woman. It was hard to stay  
unnoticed, especially by an army predominantly filled with men. Maybe she  
should have found an ugly female soldier to impersonate. Then she thought  
about it some more. Nah.  
  
Finally after several rejected offers of a fling in the grass, she  
reached the head of the army leading on through the trail in the dark  
forest. She walked as silent as she could next to another female  
soldier on horseback to her right side. The woman spared her a downward  
glance then turned back to the front uninterested.  
  
In front of them, walking several yards in the lead were two figures on  
horseback walking side to side. The profiles were that of a man and a  
woman; the man with short aqua hair, the woman with blonde hair in a high  
ponytail, and both in steel armour and thin grey forest cloaks.  
  
"Are you sure the Masters from the League were heading to the coast south  
of Lavender?" The man's voice was scratchy. Annoying. And familiar.  
  
"Yes, the scouts and our new allies confirmed it." The woman's superior  
tone was also familiar.  
  
Butch and Cassidy. So they were still around, Duplica thought, more than  
a little annoyed. She decided to eavesdrop further.  
  
"Excellent," Butch said in a satisfied tone. "But I do hope we can get  
to that Rebel base soon enough so that we can capture that Shadow Master  
for ourselves."  
  
Cassidy sounded almost orgasmic. "Did you see that man's power? How he  
totally destroyed our army and the fifth Master Pokemon? Such power!" She  
was panting like a bitch in heat.   
  
Disgusting, Duplica thought. At least this Tyra woman she was  
impersonating was an honest harlot. A harlot, but honest just the same.  
  
"Yes," Butch said, his voice now with a tinge of annoyance. He sounded a  
bit jealous. "That boy has certainly done well enough for himself. But do  
not forget whom we must trust to capture such power."  
  
Cassidy paused. "Those renegades from the Pokemon League," she finally  
said. "We should have half a mind to report them to Lord Garick."  
  
Butch let out an annoying froggy laugh. "Ah, but to possess such power,  
we might have enough power to oppose Lord Garick himself! I must admit  
this thing of letting the Forbidden Pokemon kill everyone on earth is  
nasty business."  
  
Cassidy sniffed. "Better them than us."  
  
Duplica had heard enough. She was startled that her fists had closed so  
tight in her fury. She forced herself to forget them for now and began to  
fall back where she might do something about Captain Jenny and Nurse Joy.  
  
  
  
  
  
Footsteps marched behind her in loud even steps. Misty, with Erika  
walking beside her, was being escorted to her rooms by a group of three  
soldiers and one Poison Trainer. As she thought furiously for a solution  
to the problem, she stared at the glass wall of the eastern side of the  
long tunnel they were walking through. The water on the other side looked  
black and unnatural. Not a ripple of movement. Usually there would have  
been marine life easily spotted, but it looked about as dead as the land  
above. She suddenly felt furious that even the ocean had been affected by  
the Pokemon League and she vowed that she would somehow, some way,  
restore the ocean to its former glory.  
  
She turned her head and noticed they were just walking past a women's  
lavatory. An idea suddenly reared itself in her mind.  
  
"Wait a moment," she said, stopping. "Let me just go to the women's  
room."  
  
"I suppose that's okay," one of the soldiers said. "But maybe one of us  
should supervise."  
  
She looked at them and frowned. "But all of you are men. Erika can stand  
watch over me."  
  
Erika's eyebrows went up.  
  
"B-But-" the men stammered.  
  
Before they could give a decent excuse about why she couldn't, Misty  
grabbed Erika's hand and pulled her into the women's lavatory with her.  
  
When they were inside the main bathroom, with its white tiled floor,  
sinks and mirrors, Misty turned to her friend and threw back the hood of  
her cloak, freeing her hair to flow behind her. "Okay Erika, you know I  
have to get to Ash and get out of here. I came here looking for aid, not  
more adversaries."  
  
"Yes, Koga and Aya are being a little hard-headed about this, I think,"  
Erika said as she also threw her hood back and daintily adjusted her  
shorter black hair underneath her red hair-band. "They're probably still  
stinging from when Ash last defeated them. But how are you going to get  
away when the whole base is on full alert? When the soldiers outside are  
waiting for you to confine you to your rooms?"  
  
"I have an idea..."  
  
Erika folded her arms and got a long-suffering look on her face. "Now why  
do I suddenly have a foreboding feeling about this?"  
  
Misty stepped closer and compared their figures with her hands. "Let's  
see," she mumbled, "you seem about the same size I am except maybe a tad  
more fleshy-"  
  
"Ha! And proud of it!" Erika declared, placing her hands on her hips.  
  
"And you're only about an inch shorter... it looks like I could get away  
with it."  
  
Erika blinked. Then she covered her face with one hand and groaned.  
"Don't tell me-"  
  
Misty's blue eyes gleamed. "Of course! Let's switch places!"  
  
Erika spread the fingers of the hand covering her face and peeked at her  
from in between them. "I knew you would come up with something crazy like  
that!"   
  
"Come on Erika, you know you owe me a favour," she said cajolingly.  
  
"Well how was I supposed to know Ash was a damned karate expert or  
whatever? After all, Bruno was supposed to be the best fighter." Erika  
dropped her hand and leaned against the sink. "And just how do you  
propose to pull it off?"  
  
"Come on, I know you always carry around a full cosmetics set in that   
bag you always carry strapped on underneath your cloak."  
  
Erika placed her hand over a bulge in her cloak protectively.  
  
"Besides, you are supposed to be the number one cosmetics expert in the  
world," Misty continued. "So if anyone could do it, you could."  
  
Erika looked unconvinced. "Ha, flattery won't work on me. But I'll do it,  
I suppose, since after all, you are my friend and I wouldn't want Ash  
locked up like an animal. Especially since he did save Gloom's life  
before, no matter what horrible things he's done since then."  
  
Then an impatient voice came through the closed door. "Are you ladies  
done yet?"  
  
"Don't bother women at their toilette!" Misty immediately called out in  
an angry tone.  
  
The voice muttered and then fell to silence.  
  
Erika quickly began to strip out of her clothes, first pulling off her  
green cloak then her thigh-high, soft black boots. "Well if we're going  
to do this, we best hurry up. First thing to do is switch clothes."  
  
Misty followed suit and soon they both stood in only their bras and  
panties. Except Erika hadn't been wearing a bra underneath her green  
one-piece dress.  
  
"We don't have to switch panties do we?" Misty asked worriedly.  
  
"Don't be stupid," Erika said, snorting. "And you won't be able to wear  
that bra with this dress I was wearing."  
  
Misty blushed as she unstrapped her bra.  
  
Erika looked defensive. "Well, what's wrong with dressing a little sexy?  
Don't you get sick of always looking the high-born lady?"  
  
"I suppose," Misty decided. Then soon they were both dressed in each  
other's clothes, with Misty in Erika's thigh-high black boots and  
short-skirted emerald green dress, while Erika wore Misty's shin-high  
thick leather boots, and long ocean-blue dress, skirt slitted on the side  
to allow for easier walking and movement. Although there was a little  
friction when Erika put on Misty's bra and said it was a little bit  
tight.  
  
"Honestly, Misty," Erika then said as she looked over herself. "Boots  
with a dress like this? What were you thinking?"  
  
"Look, I never proposed myself a fashion queen," Misty said hotly.  
"Anyway it looks better with the cloak on."  
  
Misty pulled Erika's power-wrought green cloak over herself, while Erika  
did the same with Misty's blue one. They looked pretty authentic from the  
neck down, Misty decided, looking at their reflections in the mirror.  
  
"Now for the faces," Erika said, as she pulled out her make-up kit from  
her bag. She fixed up Misty's face quickly and efficiently and when she  
was finished, the resemblance was uncanny. Misty marvelled at her skill.  
  
"And the trick to applying make-up," Erika said, "is to make it so you  
really can't tell the make-up is there at all." Then she took out a  
bottle and looked through the small plastic containers from the liquid  
inside. "Let's see ... chocolate-brown, silver-grey, ah, here it is!  
grass-green." She fished out the small circular container and handed them  
to Misty. "Put these on, they're coloured contact lenses."  
  
Misty looked blankly at them. "How do I put them on?"  
  
Erika looked up at the tiled ceiling and sighed. "This is how you do it-"  
  
After a few fumbled attempts and watering eyes, Misty finally had them  
on. Now she looked like Erika but with long red hair worn loose around  
her shoulders and down her back.  
  
Abruptly, the soldier's voice came back, more demanding and sounding  
like two of them were directly behind the actual inner door. "Mistress  
Erika, Mistaria, is there a problem? You've been in there for twenty  
minutes already." Shockingly, the the door began to open.  
  
"Damn, we're not ready yet!" Misty whispered desperately. "Erika, do  
something!"  
  
Erika thought fast. "Gloom, I choose you," she ordered, reaching inside  
the cloak where she had replaced her green poke balls. In a flash of  
emerald light, the blue and orange mushroom-like grass pokemon stood on  
the tiled floor of the womens' bathroom on its short feet. "Uhhh, quick,  
make a bad smell!" she whispered.  
  
"Gloom, gloom," the mushroom said in its high voice. It exploded  
microscopic spores into the air, right at the opening door.  
  
The door stopped opening instantly. "UGH! Pooh! What is that SMELL?" the  
soldier said, in a voice filled with abject pain.  
  
"I wouldn't come in!" Erika called. "Mistress Mistaria is having a bit of  
the runs!"  
  
The voice sounded like it wanted to vomit. "O-Okay, t-take all the time  
you want!" The door slammed shut with a bang and they heard two pairs of  
running footsteps until the outer door of the women's lavatory was opened  
and closed.  
  
For a moment there was silence. Then Misty said in a highly embarrassed  
voice, "How could you? Now everyone who hears about this will think I'm  
a grot!"  
  
"Gloom, return!" Erika said as a thin green laser beam recalled her  
pokemon back into its ball. She looked at Misty apologetically. "Sorry,  
that's the only thing I could think of." She shrugged. "At least it  
worked."  
  
But Misty silently fumed as Erika continued with the disguises. Erika  
then held up a can that she had taken from her cosmetics kit. "This   
spray-on colour will get your hair the same as mine, except you might   
have to cut it to my length."  
  
Misty instantly touched her long tresses protectively. "No way am I  
cutting my hair. Besides, you can't really tell the length when we have  
out hoods on."  
  
Erika sighed again. "I suppose that would work, but don't blame me if  
your hood gets knocked off or something and you get found out."  
  
After Erika sprayed her hair with the temporary black hair-dye and  
placing the signature red hair-band through the top, Misty covered up her  
head with the green hood and looked at herself in the mirror. "I could be  
your twin!" Misty marvelled. "You're an artist, Erika!"  
  
"Aren't I?" Erika said proudly. "Now for myself."  
  
Fifteen minutes or so later, Erika also looked the part, with ocean-blue  
contact lenses, red spray-on hair-dye, make-up, although it was extra  
hard for her to make herself look like Misty since Misty didn't wear any  
and any make-up visible on her face might give the plan away.  
  
Erika pulled the blue hood over her head to hide the length of her hair,  
and the switch was complete. Of course, the looks weren't perfect,  
'Erika' was the tiniest bit taller than 'Misty' when it was supposed to  
be the other way around, 'Erika' looked a little more slender and 'Misty'  
had a slightly more womanish figure and if one looked very closely,  
they'd see the faces were a bit different despite the concealing make-up.  
But all in all, it was a splendid switch and Misty was confident they  
could pull it off.  
  
"Okay, that's it!" Misty said triumphantly. "It's been half an hour, we  
should go now."  
  
"Wait." Erika held her off. "Even though you don't look like a tomboy  
any more, you still act like one and speak like one. Say, 'she sells  
seadras by the seashore'."  
  
"She sells seadras, by the seashore," Misty said in an irritated tone.  
"Now can we go?"  
  
"Now, now," Erika admonished, "Say it softer and in kind of a sing-song  
voice like I do." She demonstrated the saying for her.  
  
After Erika was satisfied that Misty could voice-act enough to get by,  
Erika practised Misty's tomboyish way of saying things, at Misty's  
annoyance. Then they left the bathroom, but not before Erika dabbed  
Misty with the perfume she always wore and washed off her own.  
  
It was easier to pull off than Misty realised once she saw that the  
soldiers were trying very hard not to look at 'Misty' and even her, with  
red embarrassed faces. She almost ruined it by exploding into anger when  
she realised what they were embarrassed about but somehow she managed to  
hold her temper in check.  
  
Once the procession made it to Misty's chambers, she waved goodbye to  
Erika and immediately started off to the elevator leading to the science  
division of the South Lavender base.  
  
  
  
  
  
Inside their red-shielded prison within the laboratory, Ash sat  
crosslegged on the floor beside the bed, facing Pikachu. They both held a  
serious look on their faces. Ash held out his right hand, while Pikachu  
had his small paw out in front of it to match him.  
  
They began to shake their fists at each other. "Thunder, water, rock!"  
Ash called. At the third swing, they stopped, holding out their hands.  
Ash held his hand out in a closed fist while Pikachu had a single tiny  
finger pointing out of his paw.  
  
"Ha!" Ash gloated. "I got rock. I win that one."  
  
Pikachu shook his head. "Pika pika."  
  
"What?" he protested. "Thunder doesn't beat rock. Don't cheat, Pikachu!"  
  
"Pi-pikachu," Pikachu said stubbornly, cheeks sparking with black  
lightning for effect.  
  
"What do you mean your thunder can beat rock? That's not in the rules of  
the game!" Then he sighed, leaning his back against the bed, and brushing  
a strand of hair that had fallen over his eye. "But I should have known  
you'd do this. You do it every single time."  
  
Something beeped and Ash looked to the side to see Giselle standing on  
the other side of the energy barrier looking at them. She was holding  
what looked like a small brown box with two antennae sticking out of the  
front. Little red lights on the box flashed as she waved it across them.  
  
"Don't mind me," she said, looking down at the box to gauge the readings  
with a smile on her lips. "Stay still while I scan you." The box beeped  
again. "You seem a lot better now..."  
  
Ash shrugged and turned back to Pikachu. He had been feeling stronger all  
of a sudden so he wasn't surprised. "So, buddy, wanna play a different  
game? Staying in here is kinda boring."  
  
"Pika pika," Pikachu agreed, pulling out a long string he had unravelled  
from one of the blankets.  
  
"Ah, Meowth's Cradle," Ash said as he watched Pikachu begin to make  
elaborate patterns with the string in his paws.  
  
"You know, I honestly can't tell what level you two are," Giselle was  
saying in a marvelled voice. "The reading goes off the scale!"  
  
"Yes, level infinity does that," Ash said in a distracted tone, not  
looking at her. "Hey, that's a great onix, Pikachu, but wait till you see  
my designs."  
  
"Pika pika."  
  
"Wait, there's something else interfering with the signal all of a  
sudden," Giselle interrupted.  
  
Ash turned back to find her staring at his pack strangely. "A pokemon  
signal coming from my bag?" he asked curiously. "But I don't keep any  
other pokemon in there. In fact I don't have any other pokemon besides  
Pikachu."  
  
"There's still a strong signal emanating from it," Giselle said as she  
stepped up to the bag and began looking through it. "Ah, here it is." She  
lifted out a brown poke-ball that seemed to be flashing.  
  
"Hey, that's not mine-"  
  
Giselle screeched as the ball abruptly broke open in her hand and  
brown-black energy escaped from it like the wind of a storm. She fell  
backwards landing on her behind as it formed into a large rock-shaped  
creature with small legs and huge thick arms sprouting from its round  
torso. Its eyes glowed red and the stony mouth on the front of its  
rock-like body was twisted in a cruel parody of a smile.  
  
"GRAV!" it shouted and began to rush forward, long thick arms  
outstretched.  
  
"Giselle!" Ash cried as he stood up and rushed over to the barrier. No  
use pretending now, he had to-  
  
"Get away from me!" Giselle shouted, surprisingly brave, as she rolled  
away, the graveller missing her by inches as it crashed to the ground  
almost crushing her. "Marowak go!" She reached inside her lab-coat and  
threw a poke-ball into the air. "Bone Club that thing to dust!"  
  
The fearsome brown lizard-like pokemon materialised from the light of red  
energy, its eyes narrowed within its evil-looking skull helmet. It  
silently leaped into the air, lifting its huge bone weapon and came down  
in a power drop, smashing it heavily down upon the graveller's head.  
  
"GRAV!" the graveller cried in pain, as huge chunks of rock broke away  
from its head under the massive hit. It began to glow darkly.  
  
"Shit! Get your Marowak away from it, Giselle!" Ash shouted. "That thing  
is about to explode!" He dived down to his belly flat along the ground,  
pushing Pikachu down underneath him. Black electricity flared over his  
back as he desperately formed a shield. The explosion wouldn't pass  
through the red barrier, but any debris would certainly pass through like  
it wasn't even there.  
  
"Marowak, return!" Giselle cried, recalling her pokemon back into its  
ball with a thin beam of red as she quickly grabbed some things from the  
table and leaped behind some solid steel experimental shielding at the  
far corner of the lab.  
  
And then there was a curious silence as if it had decided not to explode  
after all. But then a squeak put the assumption to the lie and the  
massive roaring of fire and rocks disintegrating and metal twisting  
erupted all around the centre of the explosion, shattering the thin  
silence as the graveller self-destructed like a small-scale atomic bomb.  
  
  
  
  
  
The ground trembled slightly.  
  
Four cloaked figures stood in a circle facing the violent black waves  
of the sandy beach.  
  
"The time to attack is now."  
  
  
  
  
  
Bill was rapidly typing on the keyboard, desperately trying to locate  
the source of the explosion that had suddenly rocked the base. His eyes  
danced along the monitor, quickly translating the binary code to  
information he could use.  
  
"What the hell was that?" Koga yelled, his cloak streaming behind him as  
he ran inside the Defence Control Room. Aya ran in after him, also  
wearing her Master's cloak.  
  
"I think it came from Laboratory number three!" Bill shouted.  
  
"Damn it! That's the lab Ashura's being kept in! I want information now!  
If he's gotten freed..."  
  
And then the ground shook again but harder now, like an earthquake. Metal  
squeaked and groaned as the very earth seemed to shift and from up above,  
the sound of another explosion, but this one on a much larger scale. For  
almost a full minute the base was rocked to the very foundation. Then  
suddenly it cut out like it had never been.  
  
Koga and Aya lay sprawled across the ground, knocked off their feet.  
  
"Sir!" Bill called out, panicked as he read some figures. "We've been  
breached! The base is under attack!"  
  
The speaker on the computer flared to life with its female-sounding  
electronic voice. "WARNING! WARNING! MULTIPLE UNIDENTIFIED HOSTILE  
ENTITIES DETECTED ON SUB-LEVELS ONE, TWO AND THREE AND DESCENDING  
RAPIDLY. SOURCES INDICATE CONSIDERABLE ELEMENTAL POWER."  
  
"Pokemon Masters!" Aya gasped.  
  
Koga leapt to his feet, agile, like the ninja he was and drew his katana  
from its sheathe attached to his belt. "I want colonies of Trainers for  
interception on levels four and five immediately! All backed up with what  
soldiers we have left! Go! Go!"  
  
  
  
  
  
Dario led his group of twenty trainers and soldiers carefully around the  
corner. The metallic floor of the passageway was slightly dented and  
uneven on the floor due to the tremors caused by the explosion, so there  
was some slight difficulty walking through.   
  
He swallowed as the white lights above sparked as if a fuse had blown and  
then began to flicker on and off so that the passageway was like an eerie  
game of light and shadows. It was one of those scary games kids played  
when they were young. Where people told ghost stories by the light of a  
lantern in the middle of a dark forest and periodically switch the  
lantern on and off. Dario had never liked that game. Especially when that  
bitch, Lara Larame used to tease him about it and use her ponyta to scare  
him.  
  
Flash. The tunnel in front of them was brightly lit. Flash. Total  
darkness like the inside of a wardrobe at midnight. Flash. It was driving  
him nuts.  
  
Flash. Darkness. Flash. "Hello thar, Dario," a voice with a country  
accent broke the quiet. A blue-haired woman with eyes as red as her long  
cloak was suddenly standing in the tunnel in front of them.  
  
Shit! It was her! "Attack!" he yelled as loud as he could. The shuffling  
of his group was loud as everyone reached for their poke-balls or spears.  
  
Flash. Darkness. Loud animalistic growls. Flashes of sudden flame. The  
smell of burning and cooked flesh. The beginnings of multiple screams all  
around him before they suddenly cut off. Except for one. Flash. He was  
still screaming as the lights turned on again.  
  
Dario looked from side to side disbelievingly as his voice grew hoarse  
from his yell of fright and then stopped altogether. All that remained of  
his men were blackened husks beginning to disintegrate into ashes. Except  
one man was still alive. Just barely. If you could call a man with  
blackened peeling skin, hair singed to non-existence, and arms and legs  
mostly burnt off, alive. The man shuddered once, looked as if he was  
smiling at him, before laying still, eyes melting out of their sockets.  
Dario looked away, but not before stealing a second horrified glance to  
realise that it wasn't a smile, but the way his lips had been burnt off  
to make it look like he was.  
  
Behind him was a pack of three huge arcanines, the largest red and black  
striped fire dogs he had ever seen. Smoke still drifted out of their  
nostrils as their red beady eyes, hard to separate from their red fur,  
looked hungrily at him. Dagger-like claws scratched deep furrows in the  
metal floor.  
  
Lara walked slowly up to him with a smile on her lips. She wasn't exactly  
a tall woman but she certainly gave the effect of one as she stepped  
closer, her long red cloak swaying slightly. The edges of the material  
looked as if they were on fire, orange flames flickering, and it began to  
get unbearably hot as Lara finally stopped directly in front of him.  
  
"Ironic that we switched places like this haven't we, darlin?" Lara said  
with a twist of her lips. "If anythin, you shoulda been tha rotton one  
and sweet lil ol' me, the vulnerable gal about to meet her maker."  
  
Dario's temper flared breaking him out of his stupor. "You stupid bitch!"  
he yelled bringing his hands up to grab her neck. "Ah've always hated  
you!"  
  
Soft hands surprisingly strong grabbed his wrists in vice-like grips.  
Agony flared as unbearable heat blistered his skin at her touch. "Still  
with the ol' temper I take it? My, you're cute when yar angry! You   
deserve a kiss," she said sweetly, puckering up and leaning toward him.  
  
Shockingly, he began to feel excited. How could he? He hated her! But he  
could not provide even token resistance as she leaned in closer and  
touched her lips to his. Dreamlike, he felt like his lips were on fire.  
Wait. They were on fire! Intense pain flew through him and grew like a  
brush-fire in summer. He felt his lips shrivel up from the heat and  
crackle, turning black and crispy. His eyes watered from the heat.  
  
"I knew ya always carried a torch for me," Lara said as she opened her  
mouth and forced her tongue through Dario's burnt lips. It felt like a  
snake of fire had invaded his inner-body to feast on his entrails from  
the inside-out.  
  
So this is what it feels like to eat fire, was his last thought.  
  
Flash. The overhead light sparked again and dropped the passageway to  
darkness. It did not turn on again for Dario.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Careful now! Any of those buggers could be around here, so keep your  
guard up!" Damien ordered as they patrolled yet another wide passageway.  
Behind him, his group of twenty men marched in formation, walking  
silently and alert. In one hand he carried a short sword while in the  
other he had a poke-ball ready to throw. If they met any stupid Pokemon  
League lackey they'll have a surprise in store for them.  
  
"Char, charmander!"  
  
Damien looked down at his small red lizard-like pokemon. "Quit  
complainin! It's only a little water!" The floor of the tunnel had been  
slick with it for quite a while now. Damien supposed that one of the  
glass walls of the east tunnels had probably sprung a little leak. They  
were next to an ocean after all. Or maybe some fool had forgotten to turn  
off one of the taps in one of the lavatories.  
  
As they walked on ahead around the corner, Damien spotted a pair of his  
guards that he had sent ahead to scout, looking like they were sitting  
down against the walls. "You! Stop loafin around!" They didn't move at  
his order. Stupid good-for-nothing guards. He'd half their rations!  
  
His boots splashed through slightly deeper puddles of water now, about an  
inch deep.  
  
"Char char!"  
  
"I said, quit complainin! Maybe this'll get you strong against water if  
you have enough contact with it!" They reached the two guards. The two  
loafers. They were sitting down like they didn't have a care in the  
world, heads lowered like they were asleep.   
  
"You, wake up!" he ordered, crouching down and forcibly lifting the  
soldier's head with his fist holding the poke-ball. He gasped when he saw  
the face. It looked like his eyes were melted clean out of his skull!  
  
He hurriedly let go of the dead man and leaped to his feet. "Shit,  
they've been here!"  
  
The ground trembled.  
  
"Sir, I hear something coming," one of his soldier's behind him said,  
panicked.  
  
"Look to the ends of the tunnel!" Damien ordered. "Poke-balls at the  
ready, now!"  
  
"CHAR!" The charmander suddenly leaped on to Damien's chest pushing him  
against the wall and towards the door of the men's lavatory they were  
just passing.  
  
"Charmander, you stupid, what are you doin? UGH!" He was knocked through  
the door and fell down on the dry tiles. For a moment he sat down dazed,  
then angrily kicked his charmander into the room behind him, knocking it  
unconscious. "You stupid pokemon! Why'd you do that for?"  
  
And then there was a loud crashing sound from outside and the world  
seemed to flash, the sound of thunder and lightning crackling fiercely  
in conjunction with the sounds of his men's screams. The puddle from  
outside was leaking in and Damien hurriedly scooted backward from it as  
the liquid seemed to be teeming with electricity, thin bolts of lightning  
sparking from it, seeming to reach for his feet. And then the cacophony  
of sound cut out.  
  
He heard the sound of laboured breathing and abruptly, he realised it was  
his own. Large heavy footsteps thumped outside splashing through the  
water.  
  
"Looks like a little baby has escaped." The voice was so loud it seemed  
to make the very walls vibrate with resonance.  
  
Damien stood up and forced himself backward against the inner door to the  
men's room. He held his sword and poke-ball up. "Don't come any closer,  
whoever you are!"  
  
The outer door in front of him seemed to tremble. And then it exploded  
off its hinges as the biggest man Damien had ever seen broke through, his  
tall, thickly muscled frame encased in a yellow Master's cloak while  
underneath he wore a soldier's uniform. The opening to the men's rooms  
were much too small to fit his huge eight-foot-tall body and it broke  
open in chunks, metal, wood and plaster crumbling around him. His head  
was unhooded, the hard planes of his tanned squarish face cast in sharp  
relief by the bright overhead lights. Short yellow spiky hair crackled  
with electricity at the ends. Amber eyes glowed malevolently at him, not  
the pupils but every single part of his eyes, even the whites.  
  
He had one chance left. "Gyarados, go!" He threw the poke-ball at the  
giant where it began to split open in mid-air.  
  
But shockingly, the Pokemon Master, for he could only be that, grabbed  
the opening ball in his huge ham-like fist. Red light tried to escape  
from in-between his thick fingers, but he abruptly closed his fist with a  
crunching noise. Finally, electricity crackled around his fist and he  
threw the melted bits of debris, that was the destroyed fragments of the  
poke-ball, away behind him like rubbish.  
  
Damien was paralysed in shock. He had never seen anyone do what the man  
had just done.  
  
Then the Master whipped his huge arm and hand forward and a thin bolt of  
yellow electricity shot forth from his palm like a rope and wrapped  
around his neck. It felt like boiling hot barbed wire around his throat  
and he began to choke as the lightning bolt grew tighter.  
  
"Prepare to die, baby."  
  
And then the giant flashed as electricity crackled around him like an  
aura of power and rushed along the lightning bolt connecting his hand to  
Damien's neck. The barbed wire around his throat exploded with energy,  
and for a moment he had the impression that he was flying. But then he  
saw that the lower half of his body was still on the ground, toppling  
over without a head. Then glorious blackness.  
  
  
  
  
  
Anthony lead his group of men through one of the metallic corridors of  
sub-level four. The overhead lights in this part of the base was kind of  
dim, so he was extra careful to observe everywhere thoroughly. Next to  
him, Primeape hopped along also searching alertly. According to Bill,  
any of the Pokemon Masters who had suddenly burst from above could be  
around this level or above it. He wished Master Bruno was here as he was  
uncomfortable about taking command of the other Fight Trainers like this.  
He was a fighting man, not an officer. But the main thing was that he  
wasn't a Pokemon Master. He felt terribly inadequate, but he hoped that  
the men behind him were powerful enough in number to overpower one.  
  
"Sir, I'm gaining a reading from the element detector," one of his men  
said from behind him.  
  
He looked over his shoulder. "Where's it coming from?"  
  
The man looked confused. "That's the weird thing. It keeps skipping  
around everywhere." He pointed the little rod-like detector around as if  
trying to follow the source. "It's like its circling us or something. But  
that's not possible is it? Maybe it's just interference."  
  
Anthony narrowed his eyes. "Between levels and tunnels, there's about six  
feet of rock isn't there?"  
  
"Well ... yes, there is."  
  
His eyes widened. "SHIT, it's tunnelling around us!"  
  
Simultaneous with the his shout, the earth seemed to vibrate. Then the  
gang of men behind him exploded into uncontrolled chaos as something  
huge and long and black erupted from the ground in the middle of the  
group like a volcano. Except the volcano had jaws and it clamped down on  
a man in its way. Red mists of blood sprayed everywhere as the man  
screamed, carried upward in the huge creature's jaws.  
  
Everyone began yelling in confusion. The huge snake-like head didn't  
pause as it continued rising from the ground revealing a long thick  
limbless and rocky segmented body. The sound of its roar shook the tunnel  
and it crashed through the roof, tunnelling away, taking the unfortunate  
man with it in its jaws. The immense tail whipped around knocking about  
half a dozen men over as it followed the rest of the massive snake into  
the wall.  
  
"What the hell is it?" someone shouted out of the confusion.  
  
And then the wall began to shake beside Anthony and he dived as the wall  
exploded and the huge rocky snake again smashed through, jaws dripping  
with blood, just missing him. It had looped around to attack again. The  
soldier holding the detector couldn't jump away in time and he was  
snatched away next like a worm being swallowed by a fish. It smashed its  
head into the wall on other side of the tunnel and began tunnelling away  
again.  
  
"It's some sort of onix!" Anthony shouted, getting up and leaping over to  
the slithering tail before it disappeared into the wall. "Use Fighting  
techniques!" He managed to leap up and kick it with both feet, breaking  
off several chunks of stone from its skin before it got away. A distant  
roar from within the wall was heard as he flipped around and landed  
upright.  
  
There was groaning and Anthony looked around to see over half his men  
injured and some in serious condition. Two were missing, having been  
carried away by the onix or whatever it was and maybe even eaten, may the  
spirits watch over their souls.  
  
"Everyone fall back to sub-level six!" Anthony cried. "This thing is too  
powerful and we've lost too many already!" Damn it! he thought. Bruno,  
why couldn't you be here? You'd know what to do!  
  
The non-injured members of his team helped the injured ones to their feet  
and began to retreat. Anthony brought up the rear after recalling  
Primeape back into its poke-ball. He took out his communicator from his  
pocket. "Master Koga, Fight Team One is falling back! It was an onix on  
level five-" He was cut off as something smashed his communicator out of  
his hand knocking it to the floor where it broke into several pieces. His  
hand was bleeding and he immediately looked to the back for the source of  
whatever had thrown that rock.  
  
Behind, in the dimness of the hazy light, a tall figure in a cloak of  
indeterminate colour walked forward slowly. The cloak could have been  
brown or maroon, he wasn't sure with the amount of light in the  
passageway.  
  
"Master Bruno, is that you?" Anthony called out, confused. The figure had  
about the same height as Master Bruno had, at six and a half feet or  
maybe taller and even the build was the same except maybe a tad slimmer.  
  
But then the figure threw back his hood and it was definitely not Master  
Bruno. Slitted eyes, so narrow so you could not see his pupils, thinner,  
neater eyebrows, ruggedly handsome face. Spiked darker hair slightly  
shorter...  
  
"Brock!" Anthony shouted in surprise, feeling even more confused if that  
was possible. "I thought you were dead!"  
  
"Yes, I get that a lot," Brock said, his voice full of sarcasm. He  
stepped closer, his cloak - brown, he could see, now that it was closer -  
swaying slightly at each step.  
  
"Wait, that onix ..." Anthony put two and two together and was appalled  
at what he got. He stepped backward twice, unnerved. Brock continued to  
step closer, now only less than twenty feet away and coming faster. The  
slitted eyes flashed. "B-Brock, don't tell me you're with the Pokemon  
League?" he asked in a shocked voice.   
  
"Long time no see, Anthony," Brock said, ignoring his question. "Seeing  
you again reminds me about your beautiful daughter, Rebecca."  
  
Immediately he stopped retreating and it felt like his stomach was  
ripped out. "R-Rebecca ... she's dead now," he said, his voice just  
louder than a whisper.  
  
The left corner of Brock's lip turned up as he stepped ever so closer.  
"Well of course she's dead. Because I was the one who killed her. She was  
a great lay, one of the better ones. At least until I lost interest."  
  
Anthony shook his head in denial. No. No, he could not have said what he  
just said. But the autopsy had said that it was rape-murder. It was him.  
Brock was Rebecca's murderer. No, it couldn't be, Brock had been a good  
guy. He had been one of Rebecca's closest friends! But-but, how would  
Brock know that it was a rape-murder? He had kept it a closely-held  
secret, Brock would not have known unless he had actually, he had  
actually-  
  
"YOU BASTARD!" Anthony yelled, his body flaring up in fighting spirit. He  
lifted his hands and clenched his fists, the knuckles cracking in  
preparation.  
  
"Frankly, she deserved it," Brock said, less than ten feet away now. "She  
always thought she was too good for me. Just like every other girl. Stomp  
my feelings like they weren't even there. Well they sure paid for it."  
  
Anthony wasn't listening any more. "Die!" he cried as he slid forward in  
a massive haymaker punch. One, two, one, two. He repeatedly punched him  
in the face, then stomach, then breastbone. Brock's body felt like rock,  
but he continued to hammer away with his hard fists. This bastard would  
pay for killing his sweet Rebecca! He would avenge her if it was the last  
thing he'd do!  
  
But slowly, he realised, as he tired, that he was not doing any damage at  
all. Brock wasn't moved even slightly at each hit, didn't even  
acknowledge them. It was like he didn't even feel it.  
  
Then strong hands, as tight as steel vices, grabbed him by the  
upper-arms, pinning them to his sides and hoisted him up high in the air.  
Anthony couldn't move, he was too strong. His legs kicked uselessly  
underneath him as Brock lifted him up even higher.  
  
"Tell me where Ash and Misty are." Brock's voice was soft and deadly as  
he looked up at him.  
  
"Go to hell, you bastard!" Anthony spat in his face. Then he screamed as  
the hands grasping him by the upper-arms began to pull apart, pull *him*  
apart! His bones creaked from the pressure. Agony exploded in his joints.  
  
"Very well, do not tell me." Brock clicked his tongue. "Onix!"  
  
The wall next to them exploded as the immense head of the huge stone  
snake broke through. A screaming came from its mouth and Anthony saw that  
it was one of the men that had been carried away. He had both legs ripped  
off at the knees and he was shouting deliriously, trapped in the jaws of  
the massive onix.  
  
"If you do not tell me, I will crush your good friend here." He indicated  
the poor soldier.  
  
He had to tell him. He was responsible for the lives of the men; he  
couldn't let the soldier die. "O-On sub-level thirteen, the last floor,  
Ashura should be in one of the laboratories, while-while Mistress  
Mistaria is confined to her rooms on sub-level eight."  
  
Brock nodded, his slitted eyes glowing brown. "Thank you." He turned to  
the onix, whose red gleaming eyes set high on the huge rocky head,  
swivelled to regard him. "Kill him."  
  
Anthony gasped. "But you said-"  
  
He was cut off as the huge jaws of the onix just clamped down shut on the  
unfortunate soldier with the snapping of bones and a scream. Blood  
sprayed out of its mouth in all directions. Some of it landed on  
Anthony's cheek, making him shudder.  
  
More crunching sounds followed as the onix continued to chew its morsel.  
  
"Tell Rebecca I sent you," Brock said in a voice full of pity as he  
wrenched his arms apart.  
  
The screaming in the tunnel was loud and long.  
  
  
  
  
  
Koga ran along the tunnel all alone, purple cloak flapping behind him,  
with katana in one hand and communicator in the other. "Anthony? Anthony!  
What happened?" he shouted into the receiver. He had just been cut off.  
Quickly, he switched frequencies. "Bill? I'm on sub-level thirteen  
approaching Laboratory Three. What's the status on the Pokemon Field  
Generator?"  
  
"Still operational, Sir," Bill's voice came in, with a bit of static.  
  
"So you think Ashura is still secure if he survived that blast?"  
  
"It's more than likely."  
  
"Excellent. But any word from Doctor Giselle?"  
  
"No, Sir. We have lost all communication from that sector."  
  
"Well I will investigate, I am almost at the lab now. Carry on." He  
switched off the communicator and replaced it within his cloak. As he  
turned the corner he stumbled on something lying on the floor. Smoothly,  
he dived forward in a roll with exceptional agility and leaped back on  
his feet. He whipped around, sword at the ready. It was a body.  
  
Cloak floating behind him, Koga ran back and checked if the man was still  
alive. The chest slowly rose up and down. He was, but just barely. The  
strange thing was that the soldier's eyes were still open as he lay  
deeply unconscious.  
  
Koga rose up again, alert now, and noticed more bodies strewn about the  
tunnel in front of him. There were at least more than a dozen in front of  
him, Trainers and soldiers alike. All of them looked to be in the same  
condition as the man he had tripped over, eyes wide open in their  
unconsciousness.  
  
Is this some kind of work of the devil? Koga thought as he continued on  
his way, leaping over the fallen bodies. Had Ashura escaped after all?  
Had he done this?  
  
Then something flashed white in front of him, and Koga skidded to a stop,  
lifting his katana to the ready. The whiteness materialised into a  
human-shaped figure, then slowly grew colour until a tall slim woman  
appeared, covered in a cloak the colour of twilight. Her head was  
uncovered, long black hair waving behind her even though there was no  
wind inside the underground passageway. Under the light, a long thin  
strand of green in her long bangs rested over one dark-blue eye. A coldly  
unemotional, but beautiful face stared at him, a cold gaze looking as if  
she saw right through him.  
  
"Hello, Koga." Her voice was as unemotional as her face. She stood  
at apparent ease, hands behind her back. The cloak rustled sinuously  
around her slim form.  
  
"Sabrina," Koga stated in a voice just as unemotional. "So this is your  
doing?" He waved his sword indicating the unconscious bodies with their  
eyes open.  
  
She ignored his question. "You may not pass." Her left hand lifted to the  
side from behind her back. She clenched her fist, and from her knuckles,  
seeming to shimmer with yellow psychic energy, a bright point emerged  
which then grew outward into a triangular blade about half a foot long.  
The blade seemed transparent, wavering in the air.  
  
"So you want to fight then?" Koga asked, whipping the right fold of his  
cloak over his left side to free his sword-arm. She wouldn't be so cocky  
once the poison edge of his blade scored through her flesh.  
  
"No." Her form blinked and disappeared.  
  
"Huh?" His danger sense flashed and he spun around sword blocking  
the strike with her psychic knife as she materialised behind him. But the  
katana failed to stop it as the psychic blade travelled right through the  
cold steel as if it was insubstantial as air. It cut across his wrist and  
Koga immediately lost all feeling in his arm as if she had chopped it  
off. The katana fell from unresponsive fingers, clattering on the ground.  
Following up smoothly, Sabrina spun around and stabbed her psychic knife  
right into his face. Intense pain shattered his mind and everything went  
black.  
  
Sabrina ripped her psychic knife from his face with a jerk and let Koga's  
unconscious body drop to the ground like a rag-doll. His eyes were still  
open in shock as he lay sprawled on the ground.  
  
"No," she whispered in a dead tone. She let her knife of yellow energy  
disappear from her fist and placed her hands behind her back again. Her  
form shimmered as she teleported away and a disembodied voice floated in  
the air in the wake of her exit. "Not a fight."  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash coughed from the smoke as he forced the tangled plates of sheet metal  
from his back with a strong shove. He pushed himself on to his knees and  
let out Pikachu from underneath him. He waved the dust away from his face  
with a hand.  
  
"Ugh," he grunted, "Pikachu, you okay?"  
  
"Pikapi." Pikachu gave him a thumbs up with a small black paw, the other  
also waving away the smoke from his button nose.  
  
"It sure looks like the lab isn't."  
  
He looked around. The lab was in smoky ruins, twisted bits of metal  
scattered everywhere among sparking wires and other assorted laboratory  
debris. Where the graveller had exploded, was nothing but a crater, the  
explosion blasting through the metal floor and right into the rock  
underneath. Apparently, it seemed like they were on the bottommost level  
of the underground complex. Some of the walls had caved in, some showing  
the passageway outside, and some just plain rocks falling through.  
Everything was destroyed, yet ironically, somehow, some way, the energy  
field generator was still running and they were still trapped within.  
  
"Pika pika," Pikachu said in a dead-pan voice as he noticed the barrier  
was still up.  
  
Ash groaned as he pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his bare  
chest with his hands. Checking himself for injury, he found none. In  
fact, pulling off the bandage, it seemed his arrow wound was nothing but  
a memory now, not even leaving a mark on the healed skin. Even the  
scratch on his back was gone. He had gotten better. About time.  
  
"Okay, let's get out of here," Ash said, facing the barrier. He narrowed  
his eyes and searched along the red shimmering face of the wall. "There!"  
he shouted as he thrust his right hand into a precise point, index finger  
outstretched. Then he stepped away as the barrier sparked once, then  
seemed to shatter like a glass bowl shot by a bullet. Shards of red  
energy floated around in the air then dissipated to nothingness. The  
world was full-colour again, no longer different shades of red seen  
through the walls of confining energy.  
  
As they stepped out with Pikachu following by his heels, Ash wondered if  
Giselle was alright. He noticed that where she had jumped was piled up  
high with destroyed junk. Quickly, he began to root through the pile of  
broken steel and electric circuits, tossing heavy steel pieces of  
machinery to the side with both hands.  
  
Finally he got to the bottom and found Giselle unconscious underneath,  
her body sprawled on her side. Her lab-coat was in disarray, no more a  
shimmering shade of pure white, but looking like a car mechanic had used  
it when changing the oil of a dozen leaky cars. He crouched down and  
checked her quickly. He realised that she had been protected somewhat  
from the weight of the debris by a nearby foot-stool, although she did  
have a nasty-looking lump on her head.  
  
"Hey, she saved my backpack," Ash said wonderingly as he found it by her  
side. He opened it and pulled out a spare cut-off black t-shirt from  
within and quickly put it on.  
  
"Pika pika!" Pikachu said happily as he also reached within and took out  
his pack of Pokemon cards. "Chu!" he said in a relieved tone, placing  
them back in carefully.  
  
"Let's see," Ash said as he looked in the bag again. Noticing the small  
black electronic notebook, he smiled. "Good, my pokedex is still here."  
He stood up and concentrated. Dark shadows gathered by his bare feet and  
rose up along covering his body like mist. Black boots formed on his feet  
and when the mist rose to the top of his shoulders it hardened into his  
thick, black hooded cloak.  
  
"Okay, we're all set," he said, pulling the hood over his head casting  
his face in shadow. "Now we just have to find Misty and get the hell out  
of here." He picked up his backpack and shrugged the straps over his  
shoulders and cloak.  
  
"Pika pika," Pikachu said, pointing a paw at Giselle.  
  
Ash sighed a breath of air. "You always were a sucker for pretty girls,  
Pikachu." He bent over and hoisted her unconscious body over his right  
shoulder. He was careful not to touch her bare legs and ignored the  
softness of her body. "We'll find the nearest medic bay and dump her in."  
  
And then the lights went out and the softly humming of the machinery cut  
off. Ash blinked once as his night-vision kicked in. "Looks like the  
power's been cut." He seemed to remember another explosion after the one  
that had turned the lab into ruins. "I don't like this."  
  
"Pika-chu," Pikachu said as he scampered away on all fours to the exit.  
  
Ash followed after him, carefully making sure he didn't knock Giselle  
into any of the sharp bits of metal sticking out everywhere.  
  
  
  
  
  
Misty forced the elevator doors open with a grunt of breath and stepped  
through into the hallway, rubbing her palms. The power had just suddenly  
gone out just as the elevator reached sub-level thirteen. Someone must  
have cut the power, but that seemed impossible since didn't South  
Lavender have several back-up generators?  
  
The passageway was dark and unnaturally silent as she slipped through  
quietly, keeping flat to the walls. It was strange since this level was  
usually filled with more than a few scientists and soldiers. Yet there  
was no one to be seen.  
  
Then she noticed several shadows interspaced along the floor in front of  
her. She squinted, ran over to one and crouched. It was an unconscious  
doctor, his white lab-coat marking him as one. "Doctor Proctor," she read  
out on his name tag. She remembered him. He was the lecher who had always  
tried to hit on her. The strange thing though, was that his eyes were  
wide open.  
  
She stood up and ran on silently to the lab where Ash was being held,  
ignoring the other bodies. They were probably just like Doctor Proctor  
and she didn't want to meet up with whoever had done it. She wondered if  
Ash had escaped since when the power cut off, the barrier would have  
disappeared. She hurried faster, hoping to catch him.  
  
After a while of running, as she passed a closed door, it suddenly slid  
open and something grabbed her, pulling her into the room. Before she  
could scream a hand covered her mouth and held her tight against them,  
arms feeling like bands of steel as they wrapped around her front.  
Against her back she could feel a hard muscled chest.  
  
"Erika, don't move," a soft but deep voice whispered from behind her  
head.  
  
She shivered, feeling his breath brush against her ear where her hood had  
come half off. Then she recognised the voice. It was Ash! She began to  
feel warm. Her skin tingled where he was touching her.  
  
"Tell me where I can find Misty," his voice whispered again.  
  
"Mmph memph!" Misty said against his palm. Then she bit down hard on the  
fleshy part of his hand where the thumb joined.  
  
"Ow!" he yelled, instantly lifting his hand away from her mouth, but  
holding her tighter if that was possible.  
  
"It's me, you idiot!" Misty said as soon as her mouth was free. She  
struggled, but he held her too tight.  
  
"What?" His voice was shocked. "Why are you trying to sound like Misty?"  
He loosened his arms and spun her around. Then he ripped her hood off.  
  
"Damn it!" Misty exclaimed as a strand of her hair was caught in it and  
it felt like he had pulled it off. She looked angrily up at his confused  
but cute face studying her features as he threw his black hood back.  
  
"Erika, what are you playing at?" he asked, blinking his large  
honey-brown eyes. "And how did you grow your hair so long, so quick?"  
  
"It's me, Misty, I said!"  
  
He waved his hand in front of her face. "Erika, are you feeling alright?"  
  
Then Pikachu stuck his head out from Ash's backpack. "Pikachu," he said  
in a long suffering tone. Then he sent a surge of electricity into Ash's  
head.  
  
Ash yelled in shock then he blinked at her again, his black hair sticking  
up a bit and smoking. "Oh, it's you Misty," he said a bit dizzily.  
  
Misty looked up at the ceiling and sighed. If anything she knew he was  
still Ash underneath that hard exterior. She looked back down at him.  
"Look, I had to pretend to be Erika so that they wouldn't lock me up. I  
was supposed to be freeing you."  
  
Ash shook his head to clear it then looked more closely at her.  
"Amazing," he said, his eyes wide. "You really look like her. Erika's a  
genius."  
  
She looked at him, eyes narrowed. "Hey, why do you automatically assume  
it was Erika who did it?"   
  
"Well ... only an expert could do that make-up, and well-"  
  
"Oh, shut up," Misty said, annoyed. Then she noticed something. She  
grabbed his face and pulled it close to hers.  
  
"Hey, what are you doing?"  
  
"There's something wrong here. I can't feel my poison in you any more."  
  
"What?"  
  
And then the ground shook like another earthquake and they heard a  
distant rumbling above them like another explosion.  
  
"We'll talk about it later!" Misty said, letting go of him. "Right now, I  
think the base is under attack. We better get Erika and go." She pulled  
her green hood over her head again.  
  
"It's the Pokemon League, right? There was a graveller that someone  
smuggled in my backpack. Maybe that's how they were able to track us."  
  
Misty's eyes widened at the mention of the rock pokemon. "It must be  
Brock!"  
  
"Brock again?"  
  
"No time for arguing," she said as she spun away. Then she saw something  
at the corner of her eye. It was Giselle lying on one of the medical  
beds. They were inside a medic bay.  
  
Ash noticed what she was looking at. "She should be safe here. After all,  
if it is the Pokemon League, they'll be after me, and if we go, they'll  
leave everyone else alone."  
  
"I'll feel better if I leave a pokemon here to guard her," Misty said,  
removing a blue poke-ball from within her cloak and throwing it. "Togepi,  
go! Guard Giselle alright?"  
  
The ball split open and the small egg pokemon came out. "Priiii!"  
  
Ash looked dubious. "What's that going to do?"  
  
"Don't underestimate him. Togepi's a powerful pokemon." And then she  
turned around to open the door and slip out.  
  
"Whatever you say," Ash said casting one more doubtful look at the  
ridiculously cute tiny walking egg, before following her out the door on  
silent feet.  
  
  
  
  
  
A line of fires crackled up ahead below the horizon where the trees of  
the dark forest began to grow thinner and the east coast of the continent  
began. The hot breeze blowing west carried the smell and taste of the  
ocean mixed with ashes and smoke.  
  
Butch chuckled atop his trotting rapidash. "Looks like the party's  
already started."  
  
"What are you so happy about?" Cassidy asked with a grimace on her lips.  
"We're late." She jerked the reigns of her own rapidash fire-horse.  
"Let's see if we haven't missed out-"  
  
But then the floor just seemed to give way from underneath their horses.  
Their mounts neighed in surprise as dried leaves and apparent dirt seemed  
to sink into the earth rapidly like a trapdoor.  
  
"What in blazes?" Butch yelled as he fell down.  
  
"A stinking trap!" Cassidy cursed.  
  
They grunted as they fell to the bottom of the pit and their horses  
overbalanced as they crashed, dumping them unceremoniously on to the  
ground.  
  
"Halt army!" one of the guards who had been behind them said from outside  
the hole. "Who goes there-"  
  
A sound of blow-pipes being blown. Thumps of unconscious bodies striking  
the ground.  
  
And then two familiar faces and one familiar cat looked down into the  
hole briefly.  
  
"Not you again!" Butch and Cassidy simultaneously yelled in anger. They  
tried to stand up within the pit but failed miserably, tripping over  
a horse's limb and falling on their backsides in a clatter of armour and  
swords.  
  
James grinned from underneath his mask. "Prepare for annihilation."  
  
Jessie's pale-blue eyes gleamed from her eye-slit. "And make that  
double."  
  
Persian was content with a fearsome growl.  
  
  
  
  
  
Duplica almost stumbled when the army train jerked to a halt, first the  
company of soldiers and trainers at the front, then slowly everyone else  
at the back in a large-scale domino effect.  
  
Horses neighed and people were shouting everywhere in confusion. Men and  
women in armour began rushing to the front to investigate the reason for  
stopping. The lead wagon behind her thumped and jerked to a halt. The  
driver cursed as he was almost thrown out of his seat and on to the back  
of the pair of fire horses who were pulling it.  
  
The perfect chance, Duplica thought, as she took advantage of the  
confusion of whatever it was, and slipped back to the side of the wagon  
holding Captain Jenny and Nurse Joy. And she had to get out of here soon  
since she had been in Tyra's form for quite a while now and already she  
was feeling the strain of keeping the metamorphosis steady.  
  
Lifting the side-flap she leaped inside onto the wooden floor and rolled  
once.  
  
"Duplica, is that you?"  
  
She looked up and was surprised to see Laselle kneeling next to Nurse   
Joy, while Captain Jenny was half standing up within the enclosed space,   
free from her chains. Her green forest cloak was splayed around her as   
she picked the lock on Joylene's chains. Junior was there also, at the   
back of the wagon and peeking out from the exit slit of the canvas,   
holding on to the front of his maroon cap.  
  
Duplica tiredly shifted herself back to normal form, making sure to  
remember to form clothes over herself; a short black dress to blend in  
better with the night, knee-high black leather boots and without her  
cloak. She wouldn't want to give young Junior a heart-attack. "Yup, it's  
me alright." She grinned as she noticed the chains come off Joylene's  
wrists with a snap as Laselle opened them. "Naughty, naughty. A  
lock-picker huh?"  
  
Laselle seemed to blush. "Something I learned when I was a kid." She   
Turned to Junior. "But Junior here is the pickpocket. He managed to swipe  
Captain Jenny's and Nurse Joy's pokemon back."  
  
"Oh shut up," Junior muttered.  
  
Duplica gave them a mock disbelieving look. Then she looked around.   
"Seems like the gang's all here. But where's Bruno?"  
  
Junior turned from his study of what was happening outside. "We've found  
help," he said, sea-green eyes shining underneath his cap. "Master Bruno,  
Laselle and I made it to the coast a while ago. But the Rebel base was  
already under attack. So we looped around to the south, and we found the  
coolest ship floating close to the shore." His face turned red. "And the  
captains of that ship! They're three of the most beautiful women I've  
ever seen! They looked a lot like Mistress Misty come to think of it. But  
they looked as daring as you."  
  
Duplica glared at him.  
  
"Okay, you're more daring," Junior said hurriedly. "Anyway, Master Bruno  
and those three ship captains are waiting for us at the coast. The top of  
the South Lavender base is like a massive battlefield, flames everywhere,  
so we can't go through there. But Master Bruno says that using the ship  
we can go the back way and land at the dock."  
  
"What did you do with the woman I left at the tree?" Duplica asked,  
turning to Laselle.  
  
"Oh, that woman," Laselle said, with a disgusted look.  
  
Junior's face turned red again and he swallowed as he aired out his  
shirt underneath his vest. "Uh, that woman is with Master Bruno at the  
ship. Um, she's been a bit of a problem."  
  
"Yes, I thought that would be the case." Duplica worried about Bruno.  
Judging from what she'd heard, she wouldn't be surprised if Tyra ate him  
alive. Then again, maybe having a bit of fun with that woman would soften  
his hard edges and force a little more fun in his life.  
  
Captain Jenny walked stooped over to the back where Junior was and took a  
peek through the slit. "It's still excited like a kicked anthill  
outside. Now's the best chance to get away undetected."  
  
"I was just about to suggest that," Duplica said turning to the flap at  
her back. "It would be best if we all come out this way at the side since  
at the back, the driver of the wagon behind would be able to see us. We  
go single-file, me first, then Junior, Nurse Joy and Captain Jenny, and  
Laselle can bring up the rear." She lifted the flap a little and took a  
look. "Coast is clear. We'll run off the trail into the forest at the  
sides and head to the coast. Now, go, go, go!" She slipped outside and  
landed on the dirt floor of the trail and quickly ran into the forest.  
She turned and watched as Junior and the rest followed her.  
  
"Prisoners escaping!" someone yelled.  
  
Shit, Duplica thought as she stopped, her boots skidding in the dust as  
she turned around. She handed the lamp to Junior who was behind her.  
"Junior, you and the rest fall back like I told you to, I'll slow them  
down and follow up later."  
  
Junior nodded and ran past her and off the trail with Captain Jenny and  
Joylene following.  
  
But Duplica noticed that Laselle wasn't behind her. She looked back at  
the wagon and noticed some shapes struggling through the canvas wall.  
  
"Halt, woman!" A pair of soldiers ran toward her. She noticed that these  
two were the two of the most insistent suitors for Tyra's company.   
  
She grinned as she shifted her body into a naked and running Tyra. "Oh,  
hi, big boys!" she said throatily.  
  
The two men's eyes widened and looked like they would pop out of their  
sockets. "Tyra?"  
  
When she reached them, she lifted her arms and formed her hands into big  
steel mallets. She bonked them both on the head, knocking them out, then  
ran past, letting her body return to what it was before, and jumped into  
the wagon.  
  
The man wrestling with Laselle inside was in the crimson-coloured livery  
of a Fire Trainer. "You little bitch, you freed the prisoners!" he was  
snarling, blond and tangled hair flopping around on his head as he forced  
Laselle on to the ground.  
  
Duplica kicked him in the stomach and the Fire Trainer exclaimed a breath  
in pain as he rolled off the young girl. "Bitch! Ninetails-"  
  
"Caterpie, String Shot!" Laselle called as she scrabbled backward.  
  
The small caterpillar pokemon stuck its head out of Laselle's backpack.  
"Ernh?" Silky streams of white thread shot out of its mouth and wrapped  
around the Fire Trainer who was about to throw a poke-ball. The man spun  
around once and then flopped over, a white cocoon with a head sticking  
out of the top.  
  
"Mmpht!" the man said, his mouth covered.  
  
"Fore!" Duplica ran up and kicked him again, propelling him through the  
canvas wall of the wagon where he fell with a thump and rolled away like  
a log.  
  
Laselle blinked. "Fore?"  
  
Duplica shrugged. "I get my sports mixed up."  
  
More soldiers appeared at both ends of the wagon, effectively  
trapping them. "You two, halt in the name of the Pokemon League!"  
  
However at that precise moment, the ground began to shake, the trees all  
around them rustling. The wagon creaked and shook, knocking Duplica over  
to land on her hands and knees. The soldiers outside were knocked over as  
well, armour clattering as they fell over, swearing curses. But then  
shrill screams pervaded the air, screams of pain and fright. The ground  
continued to shake and vibrate and the wheels of the wagon they were  
inside of, seemed to snap under the intense movement of the earth.  
Duplica's teeth snapped together at the impact of the wagon meeting the  
floor after the wheels broke all the way through.  
  
"The ground, they're coming from the ground!" someone yelled.  
  
"What?" one of the soldiers outside said. "What's coming from the-  
arghhhh!" His head disappeared under the edge of the wagon.  
  
"Hey, what happened to Todd? Argh!" More soldiers seemed to get sucked  
under and more yelling and screaming exploded around them. One, two,  
three, then all of the soldiers surrounding the wagon were sucked under.  
  
"What the hell?" Duplica exclaimed as she crawled over to the side and  
looked through the ripped canvas wall of the wagon. Where the soldiers  
stood looked like small tunnels in the ground, tunnels like they were  
created by some sort of animal.  
  
Duplica leaned out further and looked to the side. There was running  
soldiers everywhere and getting pulled into the ground by small black  
shapes. One soldier screamed as he sunk waist-deep into the ground and  
tried to pull himself out with his arms. But then his body seemed to jerk  
like something was viciously chewing his legs off and blood flew up out  
of the hole he was stuck in. The soldier was pulled in easily after that,  
head disappearing into the hole.  
  
A hiss came from the burrow closest to her and Duplica jerked back  
as a scaly-black shape with glowing red eyes stuck its head out. It  
looked like a sandshrew, except, not like one either. It had the same  
squat rodent body with scaly skin and small triangular ears, except it  
had darker skin and seemed to emit an aura of menace.  
  
"Forbidden Pokemon!" Duplica yelled in alarm as the sandshrew-thing  
leaped out its hole and jumped for her face. Throwing herself backward,  
it hissed as it missed her and fell back on to the ground. More and more  
sandshrew-things began popping out of the ground and started climbing on  
to the wagon. Laselle screamed as she got her first glimpse of them. The  
both of them backed into the middle of the wagon.  
  
"What are we going to do?" Laselle gasped.  
  
Duplica fought to focus her mind, body warming to her metamorphosis. In  
short order, a huge, elegant brown and white hunting-bird prepared to  
flap its large feathery wings to take off.   
  
"Climb aboard!" Duplica-Pidgeot said.  
  
When they took off, Laselle tightly clutching to Duplica's back, they  
were just in time as the whole wagon was pulled underground by countless  
demons from the earth.  
  
  
  
  
  
It was almost pitch-black as Ash followed Misty along the dark hallway,  
keeping close to the walls. Carefully, they stepped over the fallen  
bodies, their soft footsteps seeming to be amplified in comparison to the  
sheer silence pervading throughout the tunnel.  
  
"Erika's on sub-level eight, five floors above us," Misty whispered from  
in front of him. "The power's out, so we'll have to go up through the  
elevator shaft."  
  
"If there's people guarding her, what are we going to do?"  
  
"There should be minimum security due to the League attack, so it  
shouldn't be too hard to subdue the token resistance." She stopped,  
reaching the elevator doors and began to pry them open with her hands.  
"After that, we'll rise up to sub-level three at the boat docks. I have a  
ship ready and waiting to go." She grunted as she began to force the  
steel doors open.  
  
Ash ran up and forced them open for her with one hand. "So we're just  
going to leave the rest of the Rebellion behind to take care of the  
League?"  
  
"We have more important matters to take care of, like closing the gate,"  
Misty said as she stepped into the elevator, with Ash following.  
"Besides, they don't deserve our help. They were planning to use you,  
Ash! Somehow gain control over you just kind of like the League had done.  
Or drain your energy in some sort of super weapon. They figured that  
killing Gary would make everything alright." Misty lifted her hand at the  
roof and began to glow an artic blue as a beam of ice shot from her fist,  
blowing a hole through it. She jumped up through the hole and there was a  
thump as she landed on top of the elevator.  
  
Ash leaped up after her into the darkness of the shaft above, and landed  
next to her. "But I said I don't know how to close the gate to the Astral  
Plane." Then he pieced out something else she had said. "What did you  
mean that the League somehow controlled-"  
  
"We'll figure something out," she said cutting him off as she grabbed on  
to the steel cable of the elevator and began climbing quickly. "I know we  
will. Maybe we can find clues in the prophecy."  
  
"Clues in the prophecy. Maybe," Ash breathed. Then he jumped up after her  
and began climbing up too. "But now you sound just like me."  
  
The shaft was dark and narrow above them as they climbed the cables hand  
over hand. Ash tried not to look up Misty's short-skirt above him. He  
kind of wished that Erika dressed more conservatively so that he wouldn't  
be going through this torture now. Her long slim legs encased by the  
thigh-high boots dangled just above his head, driving him crazy. He  
didn't quite know how he felt about her any more, but he knew that his  
body was still heavily attracted to her. He was afraid that maybe he even  
loved her again. After all, why did he always risk himself for her? The  
only thing he knew for certain was that if he was back in love with her,  
he was even more of a fool than last time. If he fell back in love and  
she left him again, he didn't think he could bear it.  
  
And Misty, how did she feel about him? She seemed to care, always staying  
by his side whenever he acted the fool hero. Maybe she even still liked  
him, as evidenced by when they had woken up in the cave. Thinking about  
the cave he also wondered if Duplica and the rest were okay as well. The  
last time he had seen them was back at the castle town west of Cerulean.  
  
Then his danger sense picked up something and he leaned back on the cable  
to see past Misty's body above him. There was a bright orange dot up  
above in the shadows up the upper shaft and approaching fast. "Misty, you  
see that?"  
  
Misty looked up. "It's a Fire Blast! We've got to get out of here!"  
  
"What level are we on?"  
  
"Sub-level nine, we have one more floor to go!"  
  
"Damn!" He lifted out his arm horizontally and held on the cable with  
only one hand. Pikachu jumped out of his backpack and ran along his arm  
and on to his hand. "Pikachu..." He threw Pikachu up into the darkness of  
the upper shaft past Misty. "Electric Shield!"  
  
"PIKA!" Pikachu flashed darkly in mid-air then generated a shield of  
black electrical energy up above him, fully blocking the shaft. The Fire  
Blast hit the shield and was stopped by crackling electricity.  
  
But then the wall of the shaft next to him erupted with the huge sound of  
a thunderclap and thick jagged beams of yellow lightning shot into him,  
knocking him sideways off the cable. His back struck the metal wall of  
the elevator shaft on the other side and gave way from the force of the  
blast. He exploded out through the wall and into a dark passageway,  
falling on his front and sliding away feet-first, body smoking and  
sparking with left over electricity.  
  
As he slid away, a long thin strand of lightning flashed down through the  
roof and wrapped around his neck in a hangman's knot. Ash choked as it  
jerked his slide to an abrupt stop and then tightened, hoisting him up  
high in the air, swinging from side to side. His legs kicked uselessly  
underneath him as he desperately held on to the loop with his hands and  
tried to keep the lightning from breaking his neck.  
  
Then the roof in front of him seemed to collapse as the biggest man Ash  
had ever seen fell through, thick folds of his yellow cloak trailing  
above him. The floor shook violently as the giant landed on both feet  
with an immense crash creating twin craters in the floor. Looped around  
his large hands, was the other end of the rope of electricity that was  
choking him, the thin thunderbolt snaking up to the roof where it was  
hooked upon something so it could lift Ash up by the neck like an  
executioner's rope. The giant's head was uncovered revealing rugged  
square features and spiky blond hair. Malevolent eyes glowed an electric  
amber.   
  
Lieutenant Surge.  
  
"So we meet again, little baby," Surge laughed, his loud voice echoing  
around the dark tunnel. "I'll show you that the Pokemon League doesn't  
suffer traitors!" He wrenched the end of the electric whip viciously.  
  
Ash couldn't breathe as the loop of lightning around his neck tightened  
even more and lifted him up several more feet. Black spots danced around  
in his vision. Only one chance. His eyes glowed golden as he tightened  
his grip on the whip of pure electricity and forced his own black  
lightning up along it. The power cracked off his hands like a snapping  
whip and travelled along the thunderbolt to the source.  
  
Surge roared in surprise and pain as his electric rope sparked and  
spitted in black thunder, electrocuting his hands. The loop around  
Ash's neck abruptly snapped and he fell down, landing hard on his  
shoulder. Surge was blown backward by the recoil, his huge body smashing  
half through the wall.  
  
For a moment, Ash could only gulp in air with huge breaths as he lay on  
his back, clutching his inflamed throat. Then regaining his senses, he  
rolled horizontally away and flipped backward on to his feet, crouching  
with one hand for balance on the floor. His black cloak around his  
shoulders rose up and down as he breathed hard, heart beating so  
violently, it felt like it would beat right out of his chest.  
  
Surge pushed himself from the half-destroyed wall and stood up straight.  
His dark-blond spiky hair crackled with left over electricity. "Nice  
trick, little baby," he growled, rubbing his smoking hands. "But tricks  
won't save you! Raichu, Thunder Destroy!"  
  
From the hole in the wall that Ash had burst out from, Surge's Raichu  
leaped out; the naturally evolved form of Pikachu, with longer pointed  
ears, extended thunderbolt tail and round black eyes. Except it looked  
even bigger, about four feet tall, its orange and yellow body cracking  
with lightning.  
  
"RAI!" it cried as a thick column of pure electrical energy discharged  
from its mouth. Ash thrust himself from the ground in a smooth high jump,  
leaping over it, his boots just clearing the powerful attack. Then  
flipping upside down in midair, he struck his feet against the roof to  
propel himself down at Surge.   
  
"What?" Surge exclaimed in shock as Ash grasped him about the shoulders  
in a perfect handstand over his head. Then he flipped around to Surge's  
rear rotating in a half twist. Grasping him about the sides and  
taking the giant man's immense weight in his arms, he bent over backward  
in a massive suplex, smashing Surge head-first into the ground. The  
ground gave way beneath the powerful slam and it crumbled through sending  
Ash and Surge falling down into the next level.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Ash!" Misty cried as she helplessly watched him get blown back through  
the wall by a huge column of lightning below her.  
  
"Pika!" Pikachu also watched helplessly, hanging on the cable above her.  
  
"Pikachu, help him!" Misty said desperately. "I can take care of myself!"  
  
The little black electric mouse looked up at the shield he was still  
maintaining, at the powerful flames still trying to get through, then  
looked down at her and shook his head. "Pika pika!"  
  
"Get going!" Misty cried as she suddenly wrenched herself powerfully  
upward with her arms. As she rose up past Pikachu, she lifted one arm up  
and concentrated, eyes glowing as blue as the ocean as she formed a  
shield of pure ice around her fist. It spread out in a circular shape  
over her hand, fogging the air with its extreme coldness.  
  
"Pikapi!" Pikachu said shocked at what she was doing. Quickly, he stopped  
generating the shield of black electricity to let her pass. The flames  
broke through but was stopped harmlessly by Misty's shield of ice.  
  
"Now go to Ash, he needs you!" Misty ordered firmly as she grasped the  
cable again, sweating behind her shield as the intense flames threatened  
to break through.  
  
"PIKA!" Pikachu cried, little body glowing black before he leaped and  
melted through the wall to follow after Ash.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Rai!" Raichu said, shocked as she watched the evil one backdrop her  
master down through the floor. She was about to leap over to the hole and  
follow them down when the wall behind her exploded in a shower of molten  
steel. She ducked as a tiny black form shot over her head and landed  
on all fours in front of her, pointed ears twitching and jagged tail in  
the air.  
  
"Pika-chu!" It was the evil one's pikachu staring at her with its glowing  
cobalt-blue eyes. It stood in front of the hole, guarding it from her.  
  
"Rai-chu!" Raichu shouted back. She remembered once being friends with  
this pikachu, but now everything had changed. The evil one had evolved  
this pikachu wrong. It was unnatural. She was afraid of it. But she had  
to save master.  
  
"PIKA!" The little black pikachu warned her from coming any closer.  
  
"RAI!" Raichu screamed as she crackled with power and attacked.  
  
  
  
  
  
Her shield of ice was beginning to melt underneath the intense Fire Blast  
and Misty was starting to feel alarmed. She looked behind her and  
noticed the closed elevator doors to sub-level eight. She was on Erika's  
level!  
  
"I didn't know ya had power over ice and water!" a voice suddenly called  
above her and the breath was knocked out of her as something kicked her  
in the stomach and off the cable. Her back smashed into the closed  
elevator doors and she managed to see a red-cloaked figure swing down  
again and kick her even harder. The doors behind her ripped open and she  
was knocked through to land on her back, the ice shield disappearing as  
she lost control over it and slid away for several feet.  
  
The red-cloaked figure swung in after her and landed in a crouch, the  
folds of her flaming-red mantle settling around her. Blue hair in a bun  
and flame-red eyes identified her as Lara Laramie. Again.  
  
"So, Erika darlin, where'd ya learn to do that?" she said as she smoothly  
stood up, hands smoking with tongues of hot fire at her fingertips.  
  
Misty pushed herself up to her knees, breathing hard. For a moment she  
didn't understand what Lara was saying, but as the green of her hood  
flickered in her peripheral vision, she remembered that she was still  
dressed like Erika. She grinned slowly. "And why should I tell you?" she  
asked in a voice she hoped sounded like Erika's.  
  
"Well, I reckon that havin a bit 'o skill with water would come mighty  
handy to a Fire gal like myself." She chuckled. "But it's not life  
threatenin. Anyways..." She reached within her cloak and removed three  
small red poke-balls held in between her outstretched fingers. "It seems  
so unfair since fire burns grass so easily. Go Arcanines! Mangle her to  
death!" She threw the three balls into the air where they spread out,  
enlarged and exploded open with bursts of flame. In short order, three  
huge red and black striped dogs of fire stood in front of her, growling  
fiercely, fangs dripping with boiling saliva as they leaped to the  
attack.  
  
Misty rose up to her feet and took a step backwards, turning slightly to  
the side as she also took out three pokemon, two in blue poke-balls and  
one a small black badge, all held in between her out-stretched fingers.  
"If three are allowed ... go Seadra, Vaporeon and Starmos!" She threw the  
two balls in to the air where they burst open in icy energy, while the  
small black badge expanded to full size. "Seadra, Hydro Pump! Vaporeon,  
Water Gun! And Starmos, Ice Slice!"  
  
Her large floating sea-horse pokemon with razor-sharp long fins shouted,  
"SEADRA!" as it pumped a column of hard water at the first leaping  
arcanine. The fire dog yelped in pain as the cold liquid smashed it back  
painfully into the wall, putting out its fire and squashing it into pulpy  
bits of red slime.  
  
The second arcanine was shot in the face with a bullet of water blowing  
off its nose and upper-jaw and was knocked unconscious from the grievous  
wound. Misty's four-legged spiny marine pokemon stood victorious. "VEE!"  
  
Then the last arcanine was chopped cleanly in two by Misty's starmos, the  
super-sharp limbs of the black starfish pokemon spinning around with icy  
energy like an oversized shuriken. The two halves of the large dog of  
fire exploded to ashes.  
  
"What?" Lara yelled in confusion. "How can ya have water pokemon? Aren't  
ya supposed to be the Grass Master?"  
  
"The world's just full of surprises," Misty said, still imitating Erika,  
as she advanced.  
  
"Bitch!" Lara yelled. "This ain't over yet!" She threw another poke-ball  
and then shot a bolt of fire from her hands at the roof, the intense  
liquid flame melting right through. "Arcanine, Explode!" Then she leaped  
up through the hole, red cloak streaming after her as she escaped through  
it.  
  
"Oh no you don't!" Misty cried as she dived forward catching the  
arcanine's forelegs in her hands in mid-air. The fire dog began to  
squeak, signalling that it was about to self destruct, but Misty sent a  
surge of artic-cold energy through her hands and into the burning dog.  
It yelped as it began to freeze, first its forelegs where she held it,  
and then along its entire body. A light fog arose around its length as it  
cracked and froze solid. Then swinging around with her forward momentum,  
Misty threw it into the wall where it shattered into thousands of tiny  
bits of ice and water.  
  
"Now to help Ash," she said as she recalled her pokemon back into their  
balls and replaced them back within her cloak as well as Starmos, whom  
she pinned back in badge form.  
  
But then the floor erupted in front of her sending rocks, steel and  
debris everywhere. She gasped as she saw a black-cloaked figure explode  
through the cloud of destruction and land brokenly on the ground in front  
of her, flat on his back, bouncing once before laying still. His body was  
still sparking from left-over yellow electricity and his cloak was  
tattered and smoking.  
  
She ran over, heart beating hard in her chest and crouched next to him.  
"Ash!"  
  
  
  
  
  
He thought he heard Misty distantly speaking his name and he slowly  
opened his eyes to see her panicked face above him. Her make-up  
was smudged and now she looked more like herself than Erika.  
  
The sound of thunder interrupted his thoughts and a column of lightning  
exploded through the ground several feet in front of him. Surge jumped  
through, his gigantic body crackling with power, yellow cloak floating  
around him unnaturally. All the massive hits Ash had struck had seemed  
more to anger him than to hurt him. He had gotten as tough as nails. He  
was just too big.  
  
Surge rubbed his square chin, amber eyes glowing in the dark. "The  
Assassin, they called you. Well, baby, I shall assassinate the Assassin!  
Lord Garick will be pleased!" He roared a battle cry, beginning to stomp  
forward in a run, the ground shaking at his approach. He lifted his huge  
arms up and along his sparking palms formed a long-handled battleaxe of  
pure yellow electricity.  
  
"I won't let you!" Misty shouted fiercely as she jumped in front of him  
arms outstretched.  
  
Surge grunted, lifting the immense axe above his head in preparation to  
swing. "Then you shall share his fate!"  
  
A haze of darkness descended into Ash's vision. "No! Stay out of this!"  
he yelled as he exploded to his feet and leaped high in the air over her.  
Midair, his black cloak spread out like a bird's wings, glowing darkly as  
it trailed behind him.  
  
Surge thrusted himself into the air to meet him, his huge boots cracking  
the ground as he shot upward, swinging his huge axe. "After this, I'm  
gonna find Mistaria and kill her too! If it hasn't already been done  
that is!"  
  
Ash twisted in midair, stopping the blade of the axe with his fingers  
and thumb around the edge, and kicked him in the face, making sure he  
sent a surge of black lightning into his boot. Surge cried in pain at  
the massive strike and lost balance in the air, letting Ash spin around  
with another powerful black lightning-charge kick into his stomach,  
forcibly propelling the huge man backward in the air.  
  
Ash landed with a thump and continued to chase after Surge in a rapid run  
as the huge man continued to fly backward, headfirst in the air along  
the long hallway, sparking darkly with black electricity. There was a  
small explosion and a crumpling of metal and rock as Surge crashed  
through the wall at the end of the tunnel, bits of the wall flying  
everywhere.  
  
Angrily, uncaringly, Ash sped up and leaped into the air through the  
explosion, following relentlessly. His aura of dark energy dissolved any  
debris he came in contact with as he passed through the hole.  
  
  
  
  
  
Erika lay down on the waterbed staring up at the shadows on the ceiling  
as the candle on the bedside table flickered. Bored, she thought. Bored,  
bored, bored. "Next time, brain," she said aloud, "remind me never to  
listen to one of Misty's hare-brained schemes."   
  
They hadn't even let her out when she heard the two explosions. Said it  
was strict orders that she be kept here. She would have liked to show  
them who she really was, but then that would have blown Misty's cover. So  
she was stuck here, locked in Misty's rooms, with the power out and  
nothing to see with but a crummy candle.  
  
And the worst thing was that she had given Misty her favourite hair-band.  
Ugh, and she was a redhead, at least until the dye washed out in a day or  
so.  
  
To amuse herself, she had been painting her fingernails a deep emerald  
green colour. She spread the fingers of one hand and waved it about a bit  
to let it dry faster. Pretty, she conceded. But the stroke on the tip of  
her index finger looked a tad uneven. She supposed she could excuse  
herself because of the bad light though. Then as she leaned to the side  
for her bottle of nail polish to continue to do the other hand, her  
searching fingers knocked over a picture frame. Blowing a breath out of  
her mouth in annoyance she twisted around to flip it back up.   
  
As she set it back neatly, she thoughtfully regarded it. It was a picture  
of Misty when she was younger with Ash behind her, hugging her neck. Both  
wore ridiculously happy smiles on their faces as they seemed to pose for  
the camera, both of their free arms extending a hand in the 'V' sign of  
victory. Misty still wore a ponytail in this one, although it was a  
more conventional style worn at the back of her head. And Ash had that  
old Pokemon League red and white cap worn at a jaunty angle letting his  
spiky black bangs cover one eye.  
  
Erika studied Misty's smile in the photo. Silly girl, she thought. Misty  
may have made all this fuss about hating Ash, but deep down, Erika knew  
that she was still probably crazy about him. She hoped it all turned out  
for them and that they managed to escape. For one thing, she firmly  
believed that the two of them would somehow stop the Pokemon League. They  
just had an uncanny knack for solving problems and succeeding despite all  
odds when they were younger. It was a true pity that they weren't able to  
do the same thing to their relationship.  
  
As she leaned back on the bed again, she distinctly heard two thumps  
outside the door as if someone had dropped a pair of heavy wet sacks. The  
guards? Instantly she vaulted behind the bed, covering her hair with the  
hood of Misty's blue cloak. Her hair may be red but it was still too  
short to pass for Misty's waist-length, straight red hair. The cowl would  
serve to hide its inadequate length in the cover of its shadows.  
  
A further thumping came from outside the closed steel doors as if whoever  
wanted in could not figure out how to open them. Then Erika gasped as a  
large booted foot kicked through the door with the creaky sound of  
tearing metal. The boot retreated and hard fingers replaced it, slipping  
through to tear the hole even wider until the hole was as tall as the  
door. A tall, thickly built man in a brown cloak ducked and stepped  
through, dusting his hands against his thighs. He lifted his head of  
spiky dark-brown hair to stare at her with slitted eyes so narrow, it was  
impossible to see his pupils. His skin-complexion was darker than most,  
over a ruggedly handsome face.  
  
No, it couldn't be. Had Misty been right? "Brock?" Erika asked in dread,  
forgetting to mask her voice.  
  
But he was silent as he turned his head slowly to survey the room.  
Pointedly looking at the cosmetics bag Erika had left on the table, he  
frowned as if puzzled. "Something is wrong."  
  
And at that moment the east wall of the chamber seemed to erupt in an  
explosion of broken steel, rocks and dust. An unconscious giant of a man  
in a yellow cloak flew out of the cloud of destruction to fly past Brock  
and slide away on the ground. There was a muted thump as the body was  
stopped abruptly by the wall at the other side of the chamber. Something  
flew off the bedside table to shatter at Brock's feet.  
  
"What?" Brock roared in surprise.  
  
Then something else emerged from the destroyed wall. A night-black shadow  
with glowing golden eyes. A night-black shadow streaking directly at the  
dumbfounded and confused Brock.  
  
  
  
  
  
Another League Pokemon Master! Ash flew forward angrily, his fist  
streaking toward the tall cloaked figure inside the dark room. They  
hadn't seen him go all-out yet, but by darkness, if they wanted a fight,  
if they dared threaten Misty again, then they'd remember just how he'd  
inherited his reputation in the Dark Wars.  
  
But as he streaked toward the enemy Pokemon Master, his hyper-accelerated  
senses picked out the brown of the cloak. The familiar face with slitted  
eyes. Spiky brown hair. Time seemed to slow down.  
  
Brock!  
  
Desperately, he summoned shadows to slow his forward momentum. He landed  
on the ground of the room, twisting sideways as his boots skidded along  
the hard floor for several feet. Finally he managed to stop just in front  
of the man he had been proud to call friend during his training days. His  
second true friend after Misty. Whom he had just been about to land an  
incapacitating blow to the face in his berserk frenzy. For a moment he  
just couldn't say anything as he stood there, gaping in surprise. His  
tongue felt as if it were tied up in knots. He didn't know if he were  
more embarrassed at the near-hit, then hopelessly happy at the confirmed  
knowledge that one of his oldest friends was alive.  
  
Brock seemed to be staring at something on the floor in front of him. Ash  
looked down and spotted a broken picture frame amid shards of shattered  
glass. Although from this angle, he couldn't really make out what the  
picture inside the frame was.  
  
Dimly, he heard footsteps behind him, stepping through the opening left  
by Surge's body. A sharp intake of breath. Misty.  
  
Brock slowly lifted his gaze from the broken picture-frame and stared  
hard at him with those enigmatic eyes. "Ash." His voice sounded dead.  
Like a man who had been told that the one he loved most was forever out  
of his reach.  
  
Ash could only blink in surprise. Why was Brock angry with him? "Brock,  
what's wrong?"  
  
"You are wrong." An aura of ugly brown began to arise around his body.  
"You were always what was wrong in my life."  
  
Ash unwittingly took a step backward, as he wiped a thin line of sweat  
from his brow. "I-I don't understand." At the look of abject hatred on  
Brock's face, Ash's stomach felt shrivelled and tight. "I thought we were  
friends."  
  
"Always the ignorant fool," Brock said softly. "Why don't you ask,  
Misty?" He pointedly turned his gaze to the person behind Ash. "That is  
you, isn't it? A clever trick, but only a fool would be deceived."  
  
Ash turned slightly to see Misty's pained face. "Brock, I-I, have nothing  
more to say to you," she whispered softly.  
  
Brock turned back to Ash with an ugly grin twisting his lips. "Did you  
know for instance, that for a short while, when you were off playing with  
the League, that I and Misty were a couple?"  
  
A haze of deepest black began to slide down into Ash's vision. His  
control was suddenly taxed to near-breaking point. His mouth and throat  
felt as dry as cardboard. He felt betrayed. He felt like he wanted to  
die. "I ... I didn't know."  
  
Misty sobbed from behind him. "I didn't know you felt that way about me!  
It wasn't supposed to happen like that!"  
  
Yet she didn't speak against Brock's word. Had she left him only to run  
straight into Brock's arms? The thought was unthinkable. It was just too  
painful even to consider. He didn't know if hearts could break twice, but  
it sure felt like it. He felt like he would throw up.  
  
"Wasn't it?" Brock went on, not looking at her, but keeping his gaze full  
of hatred directly at Ash. "After she saw what a faithless bastard you  
are, it was only natural that she turned to me, one of yours and her  
closest friends." He shook his head, chuckling, although Ash didn't know  
if he was laughing at him or at himself.  
  
Ash closed his eyes, arms by his sides. "Fine then. If you wish to kill  
me, do it now."  
  
"Gladly," Brock said in a tone of finality, the sound of his cracking  
knuckles loud in the air.  
  
"NO!" Misty screamed as he heard her begin to rush forward.  
  
Lightning crackled as a thin bolt of electricity looped around her in a  
lasso, securing her arms around her sides.  
  
"Not a sound little girl," Surge said, the giant Thunder Master awake and  
standing now as he held her tight with his whip of yellow lightning.  
Misty cried in pain as the lightning constricted around her, the  
electricity searing through her cloak and into her skin.  
  
Erika then spoke up, finally reminding them of her presence. She had  
thrown the hood of the blue cloak she wore to reveal herself fully. Her  
arms were lifted as if she meant to attack. "This is insane! This has  
gone far enough-"  
  
But then, a red column of molten flame shot from the ground behind her  
and a red-cloaked woman jumped through from below to grab Erika from the  
rear in an arm and shoulder-lock, arms flaming to secure her. Erika  
screamed, her element weak against fire.  
  
"No interference, darlin," Lara Laramie stated, tightening her hold on  
her.  
  
"Now, it's just you and me, Ash," Brock said grimly. "And soon, it will  
be just me."  
  
Pain burst in Ash's stomach as the hardest fist he had ever felt crunched  
into his chest thrusting him backward to knock into the wall of the  
chamber.  
  
"Die," Brock spat, following up with a shattering side-kick, smashing him  
through it.  
  
  
  
  
  
"We have heavy activity on level eight, Mistress Aya. And I mean heavy!"  
  
"I'll send people to investigate immediately," Aya replied to Bill on her  
communicator as she walked quickly with her small group of Poison  
Trainers. "Any word from my brother?"  
  
"None, Mistress. At last contact he was on sub-level thirteen about to  
investigate Ashura. Colonies three till seven are also unresponsive, as  
well as sub-levels thirteen till seven. I have a bad feeling about this.  
Maybe we should evacuate."  
  
"I'll decide as soon as we find out what's going on. We're literally in  
the dark here! I should have known Ashura would bring trouble."  
  
"It's your decision. But any escape will have to be through the  
underwater docks at level three. All above-ground exits are inaccessible  
due to fire."  
  
"I will let you know as soon as possible. That will be all." She clicked  
off her communicator. She turned to her men. "Level eight, and quickly!  
We'll have to drop through the elevator shafts! I'm going to the bottom  
floor to find my brother!"  
  
  
  
  
  
"Let me go!" Misty cried as she struggled in the loop of the crackling  
electric whip, unheeding of the incredible pain it caused as she moved.  
  
"Now, now, little lady." Surge chuckled with his deep voice. "I now know  
you're really Mistaria and that dame over there is Erika. My electricity  
can easily tear you apart."  
  
"A fine trick, Darlin," Lara said as she held a weakened Erika. "So  
*that's* how a 'Grass Master' has command over water pokemon." She jerked  
Erika's arms tighter in her flame-hot grip causing her to shout out in  
pain.  
  
Surge let go of his whip, snapping it and causing it to fully wrap around  
Misty's whole body, forcing her to the ground. He looked at Lara. "You  
stay here, woman. I'll see if Brock needs a little help. That little baby  
is stronger than he looks." He stomped after them, following through the  
hole in the wall where Brock had kicked Ash through.  
  
"Okay, but hurry back now, ya hear?" the Fire Master said as her arms   
flared up in flames again to better secure her prisoner.  
  
  
  
  
  
Ash lay on his side, a gash somewhere on his head heavily leaking blood  
to drip through his hair and on to the floor. His breaths came in short  
gasps. He had stopped counting how many walls Brock had smashed him  
through. Boots stomped towards him, rising and falling out of his field  
of vision low to the ground.  
  
"Still alive? We'll soon fix that."  
  
Bone-crushing pain as he was thrown through yet another wall. He fell on  
smooth tiles, cool under his boiling skin, slipping away until he crashed  
into a hard wall underneath some sort of sink. Shards of mirror showered  
over him, some sharp fragments tearing his cloak to cut him underneath.  
He was in a restroom.  
  
Brock relentlessly followed, smashing through the hole he left in the  
wall and widening it with his thick body. It didn't even slow him down,  
brown cloak floating behind him in his rapid steps. "Pervert in the  
women's room," he said in a disgusted tone.  
  
Smash. This time his thrown body flew through a toilet cubicle shattering  
the ceramic seat before breaking through another wall. Now he lay in  
another dark passageway, but this one having a glass wall all along its  
eastern side. The black waters of the eastern ocean was still through the  
other side of the glass. Maybe Brock would throw him through it. Drowning  
seemed an ironic way to die.  
  
Brock followed him into the tunnel. "Why don't you fight back?"  
  
Ash coughed up blood as he lay facedown on the ground. "I-I can't. I  
can't fight you, Brock. I'm sorry."  
  
Brock just seemed to get even angrier. "Pathetic. To think I wasted all  
my time plotting when all along you'd go without a fight. Well, now  
you-argh!"  
  
He was cut off as bright light flared to throw him back violently. Ash  
tiredly lifted his head to see ... Misty? He spotted blonde hair. No it  
was Valdera. She looked absolutely furious as she walked towards them  
from the other side of the tunnel. Her brilliant blue eyes were glowing  
and her cloak of purest white seemed to light up the darkness of the  
passageway. Sun-bright hair floated unnaturally in the air behind her  
unhooded head.  
  
"Touch him again and you die." Her husky voice was dreadful in its sheer  
menace.  
  
Brock lifted himself to his knees from where he was blown backward by the  
light. His slitted eyes gleamed a malevolent brown. "You whore, Lord  
Garick himself has already ordered his death! Don't stop me!"  
  
"No one will be killing Ashura unless I say so," Valdera said dangerously  
as she stood next to Ash's fallen body.  
  
"Are you turning traitor?" Brock asked softly, standing to his full  
height of six and a half feet. "Will you follow Ash's footsteps and turn  
against the Pokemon League?"  
  
Valdera tilted her head to the side and folded her arms. "No, but I am  
doing this in my own way. And that method does not involve Ashura's  
death."  
  
"Well, my way certainly does involve his death. And I suggest you stay  
out of it."  
  
"Are you challenging me, Master of Rock?" Her white cloak seemed to flare  
as bright as day for a short instant. "Will you go up against the Light  
Master? Unlike Ashura, I have no compunctions about fighting back." She  
stepped past Ash and began to approach him, hands behind her back.  
  
Brock stood his ground. "You're just like your faithless sister. Nothing  
but a whore!"  
  
But at the mention of Misty, Valdera's eyes had flared impossibly blue.  
"You dare to compare me to Mistaria? You should have known better by  
now!"  
  
"Stupid bitch, I've gained some forbidden powers of my own since the  
opening of the gate! Onix, subdue her! I'll give you the pleasure of  
raping you before I kill you!" From the ground in front of him, the head  
of the immense black snake of rock erupted, jaws wide open showing  
hideously sharp stony teeth.  
  
Valdera began to run, cloak spreading out behind her. "Pathetic wretch,  
that is the only way you can have women and you will fail even at that.  
Pikachu, Thunder Melt!" From her outstretched palm, purest white light  
flared, forming into her ivory-coloured pikachu, green eyes radiating a  
bright emerald light.  
  
Further conversation and sound was then blurred into an incomprehensible  
buzz as Ash began to fall unconscious. Tired, he was so tired.   
  
  
  
  
  
Lieutenant Surge chuckled as he followed the trail of destruction Brock  
had left in his punishment of the traitor-assassin, Ash. Brock seemed to  
enjoy throwing him through walls, he decided, after stepping through the  
yet another one. His boots splashed as he stepped in something wet. He  
frowned as he noticed overflowing water under his feet. It was a  
restroom, although he could hardly see in the darkness of the room. He  
stepped through another hole in the wall behind a smashed toilet stall  
and stepped into another tunnel, one with a glass wall showing the ocean  
through the other side.  
  
There. He noticed the crumpled heap on the floor in a tangle of black  
material. Ash, the little baby. But Brock was nowhere to be seen as he  
turned his head from side-to-side to look down both sides of the tunnel.  
  
He stomped toward the fallen body, enjoying the loud thumps his boots  
made on the floor due to his size and wrenched up the baby in one hand.  
His hand was so big, his fingers could wrap more than half-way around the  
baby's chest. He hoisted the worthless trash up with his arm slightly  
above his head, tattered black cloak hanging limply around the  
unconscious body.  
  
A weak pretty boy, Surge decided as he studied the baby's unconscious  
face, matted black hair lying half in front of his closed eyes. Almost as  
pretty as a girl if it weren't for the masculine tilt of his eye-brows  
and hard lips. Not a hint of a whisker either. It was hard to believe  
that this one could fight like the demons of hell.  
  
Flexing his fingers wrapped around the baby's chest with his hand, Surge  
thought about crushing it. It would save Brock the trouble when he came  
back from wherever he was. He began to squeeze.  
  
Eyelids abruptly flicked open and eyes glowing red as blood stared down  
at him. Surge gasped as his muscles all locked up, suddenly paralysed. He  
couldn't move!  
  
As silent as death, black shadows fogged up around the black tattered  
cloak and when they dissipated, the holes and tears were gone as if they  
had never been.  
  
An ugly smile formed underneath gleaming crimson eyes.  
  
  
  
  
  
The ninth floor was riddled with destruction as the two electric pokemon  
battled to the death. Walls looked as punctured as swiss-cheese as  
streaks of black and yellow collided and crashed with powerful sparks of  
thunder and lightning.  
  
"RAI!" Raichu screamed as she managed to Mega Punch the fast-moving black  
blur, knocking it into the ground.  
  
"PIKA!" The black blur rebounded from the floor to smash her in the  
chest, forcing her back.  
  
No matter what she did, the evil one's pikachu just seemed to shrug it  
off and continue to fight. In fact, she guessed that it was holding back  
on her, that it was just fighting her to stop her from attacking the evil  
one. It didn't really make sense since she was much larger than the other  
electric mouse and should have overpowered it easily. The evolvement to  
shadow frightened her.  
  
But at that moment, the black pikachu stopped moving as if paralysed. It  
stood on all fours on the ground, jagged tail in the air with a  
distracted look on its face.  
  
Had she finally managed to hurt it? Had it tired? Who cared, this was her  
chance! Raichu cried a battle cry as she powered up considerable   
lightning for a Thunder Punch and streaked forward for direct collision.  
  
The pikachu's blue eyes blinked once and turned red.  
  
It was the last thing Raichu saw before everything turned black.  
  
  
  
  
  
Tears of pain watered Misty's eyes as she tried yet again to break free  
of the lightning holding her captive. She let out a breath as the  
boiling-hot barbed wire just seemed to constrict further into her arms.  
  
"It's no use, Mistaria, darlin," Lara said in her country accent. Then  
she let out a quick laugh. "Ain't this rich? I have two of my husband's  
murderers right here at my mercy. How would yas both like to die?" She  
jerked her arms that were still holding Erika captive who was too weak by  
the flames to resist.  
  
"You were married to Blaine?" Erika asked tiredly. But she still managed  
an incredulous tone.  
  
Lara's voice instantly grew menacing. "You find somethin shockin 'bout  
that?"  
  
"But, uh, wasn't he a bit old?"  
  
Lara gave a contemptuous snort. "Age don't matter with true love. Our  
union was as hot as the flames that borne us. You were always so shallow,  
Erika, thinkin that physical appearance was the most important thing."  
  
Erika was silent for a few moments. "You may be right, but we didn't  
murder him. It was self-defence."  
  
Lara shook her head. "Then ya shouldn't have interfered in League  
business! Anyways, I figure I'll be a-breakin your necks. After all,  
that's how ya went and offed my husband. I hope his shade is cheerin  
along with me!"  
  
Misty struggled again, "No, kill me and leave Erika alone!" she pleaded.  
"It was me who dealt the killing blow." She wouldn't mind dying. Ash  
probably hated her now after what Brock had told him, she thought  
bleakly. She had turned to Brock for comfort back in those days. But she  
never felt the same way with Brock that she felt with Ash. She never even  
knew how Brock felt about her; she felt that he was just being friendly.  
It was all a misunderstanding. But she still felt like dying; she still  
had the tight feeling in her stomach that she had felt ever since Ash had  
looked at her with those eyes full of betrayal.  
  
"Nah," Lara said, rejecting her offer. "My sources told me that it was  
Erika who gave ya the opening to do what ya did. And so she's gonna  
die as well. Starting right-"  
  
Misty closed her eyes.  
  
A flash of golden yellow. Then a short silence.  
  
"Misty?"  
  
"Erika?" Misty dared to open her eyes and turn around on the floor to her  
friend. Erika was standing tiredly, the blue cloak she was wearing,  
smoking with the fire that had scorched it. Lara Laramie lay on the  
ground, eyes closed.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Erika walked over to Misty and ripped the lightning rope from her with  
her hands. "I don't know. She was just about to break my neck and I was  
preparing to meet my maker, but then, she just suddenly fell over."  
  
Misty stood up, staggering a bit at her injuries. "I-Is she dead?"  
  
"I think I heard her snore. She's sleeping."  
  
"You didn't-" Misty waved her hands in a gesture.  
  
"No, you know how fire weakens me. I couldn't have shot sleep powder if  
my life depended on it - which it did." She frowned. "I don't sense this  
is a poison-induced sleep anyway. It's probably psychic."  
  
"Psychic," Misty repeated thoughtfully. "Anyway." She walked over to  
Lara's sleeping body and held her hands over her. Her eyes flared a  
bright blue and a white fog descended from her hands. The fog slowly  
turned to ice and a minute later, Lara was securely covered by a prison  
of coldness. "That will hold her," she stated. Then she turned back to  
Erika. "I have to go after Ash now." She wiped a tear out of her eye.  
  
Erika gave her an encouraging smile. "I knew you would say that." Her  
eyebrows drew together. "But I have a feeling that this place is going to  
hell soon, so I'm going to find my Grass Trainers and other people and  
split this place as soon as possible. I'll meet you at sub-level three at  
the underwater docks. But, we won't leave without you of course. Now,  
find your boyfriend and get out of here!"  
  
Misty gave her a fierce hug. "Thanks, Erika, but he's not my-"  
  
"Skip it," Erika cut her off. "You can stop the useless denials, just  
give me my cloak back."  
  
Misty laughed, feeling a little better. "Sure thing."  
  
Soon with the two of them back in their own cloaks and regenerating the  
broken material with elemental energies, although still in each other's  
underclothes, Misty followed the trail of destruction to find Ash.   
  
  
  
  
  
They were in the soldier's quarters, the large dark hall filled with  
single bunk-beds. At least it was filled with them; now most lay  
destroyed in the course of the battle. The only source of light was the  
woman in white trapped in the huge coils of the immense snake of dark  
rock in the centre of the hall.  
  
Brock grinned in exultation as his huge onix bound the bitch up tight.  
"That's it, Onix, squeeze the whore!" He stood crouched on one knee,  
bleeding from numerous cuts underneath his brown cloak. Onix was also  
marked, his black rocky skin melted in several places. The bitch and her  
pikachu were vicious. He couldn't wait to have her, especially since she  
looked so much like Misty. Maybe it would be like having Misty herself.  
Then he could compare with her later. Now he would really find out  
whether blondes or redheads had more fun.  
  
Valdera was breathing hard as she was lifted up high, suspended and  
trapped in the thick curls of the giant snake. Her exquisite face was  
calm despite that. "I see you have gotten more powerful."  
  
"Electricity cannot stand up to rock," Brock gloated. "Especially when  
that rock has elements of the Forbidden. And now you shall-"  
  
A huge explosion to the side cut his speech off. Rocks and mangled steel  
of the wall showered over them in hot shrapnel. Brock grunted in pain as  
he shielded his face with his arm, sharp bits of debris piercing him  
until he moulded his body from the neck-down to hard rock to deflect   
them.  
  
"Who?" Brock growled as he searched the source of the explosion with his  
eyes. Two disembodied glowing red eyes floated in the darkness of the  
shadows. Then it stepped forward into the slight light given off by  
Valdera's bright aura. A figure in a black cloak, sinuously waving about  
in motion around its body even though the air was still. The head was  
uncovered, revealing darkest hair, also waving about as if in a breeze.  
  
"Ash," Brock uttered in a hate-filled tone. Then he wondered about the  
red eyes and put two and two together. He looked around. "Sabrina? Are  
you here? Good work for bringing him back under control!"  
  
Silence.  
  
Then, "Sabrina is not here." The voice was soft.  
  
Brock looked back with confused eyes. "What?"  
  
The figure lifted its hand into the light, revealing that it was carrying  
something. An arm. A dismembered arm, long and thickly muscled, wrapped  
in a few tatters of yellow cloth. Blood dripped off the severed end, from  
the snapped bone protuding from ripped flesh in slow red splashes.   
  
Shockingly, without warning, the severed arm just suddenly turned  
black and powdered to ashes in the figure's hand. Then the figure  
scattered the ashes in front of it as if it were nothing but dust. The  
shadow underneath the glowing red eyes that was its mouth smiled a smile  
of malevolence. It took a step forward and a small explosion came from  
the floor in front of it as a small shadow leaped out to land on its  
shoulder. Smaller red eyes flared. Pikachu.  
  
"So, Ash, you killed Surge," Brock said slowly, shaking his head. "Will  
you kill every one of your old allies in the Pokemon League?"  
  
The figure's eyes flared brightest red. "I am Ashura, and I will kill  
everyone."   
  
The ground trembled at his words. Everything seemed to shake and yet not  
shake; a hard impact to the air, like deepest bass shaking the bones, but  
silent, without sound.  
  
  
  
  
  
South Lavender Rebellion Base was a marvel of underground engineering.  
Designed by Bill himself, thirteen levels of sophisticated technology  
ensured a comfortable and secret sanctuary for the Rebels of the Pokemon  
League. It was the largest place that the Rebels could call home.  
  
A part of its beauty was how every lower-most eastern-most tunnel was  
half-made of clear glass to show off the wonders of the underwater ocean.  
  
But now the beauty of the complex would also be its death.  
  
Simultaneously, every glass tunnel of the base shattered like glass shot  
with a gun. Instantly, black water poured in like a tidal wave through  
each breach in every tunnel. Hundreds of millions of tons of liquid  
rushed into the empty spaces with the force of a mountain falling.  
  
Within the waters, uncountable scaly horrors snapped huge jaws dripping  
with venom.  
  
  
  
  
  
Doctor Proctor groaned as he blinked his dry eyes, rubbing his aching  
forehead. The last thing he could remember was something yellow stabbing  
into his face and mind-numbing pain. He thought for sure that he was  
dead, but here he was, suddenly awake, alive and well.  
  
All around him, other unconscious people also began to awaken.  
  
But it was short-lived. The ground began to vibrate madly as if the base  
were sitting on a giant jack-hammer. The sound of thunder seemed to echo  
all around them even though it was impossible for the weather to turn so  
bad that it would reach so far underground.  
  
And then the rushing waters reached them. It smashed them from both sides  
like a man clapping insects between his hands. Those who were more  
unfortunate and weren't killed instantly by the impact were instead torn  
apart by the vicious water dragons with black scaly skin and glowing red  
eyes. Forbidden Gyarados.  
  
Doctor Proctor was one of the unfortunate ones.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Priiiii! Toge, toge!" Something was slapping her face. Giselle woke up  
with a snap. Something egg-like was sitting on her chest. It blinked at  
her.  
  
She screamed as she brushed it off and rolled over, falling off the bed.  
"Stay away!" she shouted in panic.  
  
The egg-thing looked at her with an anxious look on its frightening face.  
"Priii, toge, priii!"  
  
Giselle groaned as she rubbed her forehead. "Shut up, you're giving me a  
headache."  
  
And then the door was forced open. Giselle quickly turned to see who it  
was. It was Joe, his plain face with the look of absolute fear on it.  
"Giselle! Thank the gods I found you! I've been tracking your wrist-band  
with my scanner for a while now. We've got to get out of here!"  
  
"What's wrong?" Giselle knew Joe was kind of a scatterbrain and not a  
good pokemon trainer at all, but she knew when he got scared this bad,  
something was majorly wrong.  
  
"Don't you notice the floor vibrating?" Joe yelled. "The glass tunnels  
have been shattered! And if that's not enough, the water that's flooding  
the base is packed with Forbidden Pokemon! The water will be here any  
second!"  
  
Giselle turned to the open door. Sure enough she could hear the familiar  
sound of rushing waters, but at the same time, alien roars that  
frightened her even more than the egg-thing. "What are we going to do?"  
Giselle panicked. "I think the power's out, there's no way we can get out  
of here in time even if we could reach the elevators!" She couldn't  
believe it. She was about to die. She was too beautiful to die. 'Live  
fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse', was what the saying said, but  
even that would be denied her after the Forbidden Pokemon were through  
with her.  
  
She was startled by the egg-thing screaming again. "Toge priiii!"  
  
"What does it want?" Joe asked, crouching down.  
  
The egg-thing started to wiggle its fingers. Giselle's eyesight wavered  
as if the air was moving like in a heatwave.   
  
Flash.  
  
A second later, a tidal wave of black water smashed through the doorway  
flooding the room instantly. The gyarados were puzzled. They had sensed  
food in this room only an instant ago. But now they were gone.  
  
  
  
  
  
"I am Ashura, and I will kill everyone."  
  
Misty was shocked as she heard the words and felt the hard impact to the  
air just after following the trail into the soldier's hall. What was  
going on?  
  
White light shimmered and she spotted her twin sister slipping out  
of the binded coils of an onix as easily as sunlight through clear  
glass. "What is wrong with you?" Even Valdera sounded worried.  
  
"Kill everyone?" Brock said in a mocking voice. "You say that like you're  
a different person."  
  
Ash stared at him with those frightening red eyes. "Yes. And your soul I  
shall save for last."  
  
Blink. Misty gasped as the light suddenly cut out to total and  
complete darkness. Her night-vision was good, but even she couldn't see  
anything in this horrible absence of all light.   
  
Then came the loud sound of a hard impact. And the sound of a body  
falling.  
  
Simultaneous with the body falling, light returned with the same  
suddenness of the abrupt dark.  
  
Misty blinked again as she saw Brock laying on the ground unconscious  
with hundreds of marks upon his body; each hit, having apparently hit a  
vital spot. The attack must have been so fast, that the one single impact  
that was heard must have been all the sounds of the hits joined together.  
Even more shocking was that the onix that had stood behind Valdera  
earlier was now no more than a pile of dust, scattering where it lay.  
  
Ash remained where he was standing as if he had not even moved. But the  
tell-tale smoke wavering from his fists showed that indeed he had.  
  
Ash let out a hard laugh as he lifted his hand. A ball of shadow  
materialised along his open palm which he threw at Brock's fallen body.  
The body seemed to invert into dark energy and get inhaled by the  
ball. Then it floated back to Ash's open hand. "Alright," he said  
sarcastically, "I got Brock." He shrunk the ball of shadow to marble-size  
and placed it within his black cloak.  
  
"I do not understand this," Valdera said softly. "Until I find the  
answers, sayanara." Her body flashed white and was gone. Instantly the  
room fell dark again, though not so dark Misty could not see like  
earlier.  
  
Then the doors bust open and a group of six men dressed in the purple  
clothes and armour that marked them as Poison Trainers rushed inside.  
"Ashura!" the lead man yelled. He had dark-brown hair and a whip in one  
hand. "You are charged with the wilful attack against Master Koga!"  
  
They began to surround him.  
  
"No!" Misty yelled desperately. "Run away! You'll get killed!"  
  
"Mistress Mistaria, you are also charged with the aiding and abetting of  
a known criminal!" the lead trainer ordered. "Now stay-"  
  
Ash's body began to glow black, an aura of pure shadow with sparks of  
ebony lightning. Horrible darkness began to descend in the room. Eyes red  
as blood flared as bright as the last sunset of a sun.  
  
Misty started to step forward, when a tall slender form materialised in  
front of her. A form in a cloak, the dark blue-purple of twilight.  
Knowing dark-blue eyes stared at her from underneath black longish bangs,  
one strand of it tinged with green.  
  
"Misty. Go now." The voice was calm, with no emotion.  
  
"Sabrina?" Misty took a step backward, unnerved by the sudden appearance  
of the strongest psychic in the world. "B-But, Ash-"  
  
"It is preordained. You cannot do anything here except die, and that is  
not your purpose."  
  
Misty hardened herself. "I am not leaving without Ash! Somehow I have to  
snap him out of ... of whatever trance he's in, and, and-"  
  
"Have no fear of him. It is not his time to die either. You will see him  
again. Soon. But leave. I will take you."  
  
Misty was about to argue again, but stopped as Sabrina's eyes flared  
golden.   
  
The air wavered and the world seemed to blur. She blinked. When  
she opened her eyes she was at the underwater docks up in sub-level  
three. In front of her was the submerging bay, a semi-circular body of  
water enclosed by rocky walls. Only ships that had submarine capability   
were able to get here, having to dive under the rocks to get to and from   
the sea.   
  
A slight breeze created by the water blew against her hot face and  
brushed her hair from her eyes. She stood at the square end of the docks  
on the cement wharf directly in front of a sleek-looking ship, shaped  
like a speed-boat except much larger and more curved, about fifty feet  
long and about twenty at its widest point. The cabin on the deck was  
slanted for speed also, the windows tinted black. The hull was a gleaming  
white and on the side, the name of the boat was painted, 'The  
Waterflower'. Her eyes fixed on that name like glue.  
  
"Oh, like wow! It's our little sister!" a high bubbly voice said. "And  
she really did dye her hair black!"  
  
That voice! Misty immediately turned around to see three beautiful women  
in skimpy sailor outfits walking toward her, one in red, one in green and  
one in yellow. Her older sisters! There was Daisy, with long wavy blonde  
hair reaching past her waist, the tallest of the three although Misty was  
now taller than her by about an inch, Violet with her navy-blue hair  
reaching to her upper-waist, and an inch shorter than Daisy, and finally,  
Lily, with her shoulder-length pink hair and also the shortest of her  
sisters. All had eyes as blue as the ocean, as blue as Misty's own. And  
Valdera's. It was Lily who had called out to her first.  
  
"Like, long time, no see, Misty," Violet said in a more reserved voice,  
but still obviously happy.  
  
"Thank goodness you're here." Daisy smiled gently at her youngest sister.  
  
Misty ran up and hugged them all, tears streaming down her face. "Daisy,  
Violet, Lily, I-I can't believe it! I thought you all died in the Dark  
Wars! What are you doing here?"  
  
Daisy hugged her back, then was the first to step away from the  
group-hug. "Now, now, Misty, like we're in a little hurry now." She  
indicated all the people rushing aboard the large ship. "I think we  
should be getting out of here while the getting's good. We can answer  
questions later."  
  
Duplica's voice called from behind her. "Yeah, Misty! Hurry up and get  
in, so we can go! Erika and her trainers and everyone else are already  
inside! Even Giselle and Joe if you can believe it!" A pause. "You look  
so weird with dark hair," she then said in a laughing tone.  
  
"Erika said it would wash out in a day." Misty turned to see Duplica  
standing in the boat wearing a black dress of flimsy nothing, as usual.  
Her long blue hair was waving slightly in the breeze created by the  
water.  
  
Lily started pushing her from behind on to the gang-plank. "Like, let's  
go already!" she cried excitedly.  
  
"Where's Ashy?" Duplica asked, suddenly sounding worried. "I don't see  
him with you."  
  
Her sudden good-humour fell to earth like it had never been. "We-We have  
to leave without him," Misty said, suddenly feeling her eyes water.  
"But Sabrina said that he would be alright."  
  
Duplica looked shocked. "Sabrina?"  
  
"Like I said," Daisy ordered firmly, "We'll have plenty of time to talk  
once we're safely out of here. Now girls, move, move, move!"  
  
Soon, the sleek Waterflower was moving away from the docks and submerging  
into the black waters, starting to gain speed to dodge any gyarados that  
tried to attack. They left the flooding Rebel base rapidly behind them.  
And just in time as the very planet seemed to heave on its hinges.  
  
  
  
  
  
The blue-black clouds high above South Lavender were sparking with  
unnatural black lightning as they swirled in a circular motion. It forked  
across the sky like a drowning river to the sound of roaring  
thunderclaps. Sharp and violent winds blew, throwing the waters of the  
black eastern ocean around like a bucket of water in an earthquake. Huge  
thirty-foot tidal waves smashed the sharp rocks of the coast to crumbled  
black sand. The smell of ozone was overpowering in the air.  
  
Soon, all too abruptly, the thunderstorm up above grew to a resounding  
crescendo, a howling cacophony of sheer noise as a veritable expanse of  
pure black thunder, jagged electricity, bolts and energy gathered in a  
complete climax of elemental power.  
  
From deep within the earth, within the flooding base, a lone voice  
shouted, "DARK LIGHTNING APOCALYPSE."  
  
Simultaneous with the shout, the wind screamed and the earth trembled as  
the gathered lightning of shadow struck all at once deep into the centre  
of the Rebel base, driving deep into the very earth until it struck the  
person, and its pokemon, who had summoned the power. A chain-reaction  
ensued outward into a rapidly growing sphere of pure darkness from the  
point of contact; from the person himself into an explosion-implosion as  
had never been seen before or ever been conceived.  
  
Anything in a one mile radius simply ceased to exist.  
  
  
  
  
  
The morning that was not a morning was a dreary and dark affair. Swirling  
blue-black clouds, the same as always ever since the opening of the gate,  
blew around unnaturally, still affected by the extreme destruction caused  
yesterday. The repercussions of the disaster was still overlapping into  
nature, the very shape of the earth around the affected area knocked  
into completely different land formations. Mountains where there was  
water, water where there was land. Most of the ruins of Lavender Town was  
destroyed, half-submerged by the sea, but strangely, Pokemon Tower lay  
unaffected, still rising up above into the sky, demonic designs carved on  
the curved black stone walls.  
  
Three miles south-east, within the ocean, dark waters that reflected the  
sky lapped up and down in rippling waves. There wasn't as much debris  
floating on the waves as could be expected; mostly anything in the  
'explosion' was simply obliterated.  
  
Upon a floating plank of wood, an unconscious figure in a sodden black  
cloak and wearing a backpack clutched, draped over it with his arms,  
face laying upon crossed wrists. The lone survivor within the radius  
of destruction. But also the instigator of the destruction.  
  
Nearby, a sleek pointed white ship rose out of the water slowly. A  
spotlight shone from the tip of the large boat, lighting upon the figure  
floating in the ocean. A red-haired woman in a blue cloak emerged from  
the cabin and dived off the side into the water. The dive was graceful  
and smooth, a perfect slicing of the dark waves. The woman swam  
free-style towards the unconscious man, grabbed him about the upper-waist  
and pulled him back to the boat, pulling herself along the lapping sea  
with her free arm and powerful kicks of her feet.  
  
A rope-ladder was thrown off the side of the ship to pull the woman and  
the man up.  
  
"Is he okay?" Duplica asked, while Misty sat down, resting from her swim.  
  
Bruno examined the unconscious Ash. Pikachu, also unconscious, lay next  
to him, his black fur dripping with sea-water. The electric mouse had  
been inside the backpack which was sodden also, although the interior was  
dryer than would be expected with the brown material being waterproof.  
"He seems okay. He hasn't taken in any water at least."  
  
Misty crawled over to Ash's side. Her cheeks were wet, both from tears  
and the ocean.  
  
"I told you he would survive."  
  
Misty looked up to see Sabrina standing at the front of the ship, hands  
behind her back, her twilight cloak and long hair unmoving despite the  
ocean breeze. "Why are you helping us?" she asked softly. "Aren't you one  
of the Pokemon League?"  
  
Sabrina shook her head. "I owe allegiance to no one, save to the  
allegiance of fate."  
  
"And just what is our fate?"  
  
"That is yours to discover. But know this." She stared unblinkingly at  
them with her dark-blue eyes, sinister but hauntingly beautiful. "To  
defeat the prophecy, this must you do. Destroy the souls who sought.  
Destroy the Elite Four and the League Master with them."   
  
She looked pointedly at the small poke-ball of shadow that had rolled out  
of Ash's sodden black cloak and on to the deck of the ship. "You already  
hold one of them."  
  
  
*** End of Part 9  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity  
  
Attack : Shadow Demon  
Type : Shadow  
  
The very light is absorbed. The true nature of this attack is unknown.  
  
_________________________________________________________________________  
  
Notes:  
  
Now why did this part take so long? Well just look at the length of it! I  
had certain ideas that all had to fit in this chapter. Yes, they all  
absolutely positively had to fit in!  
  
Oh and I did not create any new characters for this part. See if you can  
recognise where all the named characters come from =).  
  
*Sigh* Now maybe all the nagging will stop =P. Please understand people,  
that I'm a busy guy and that I only do this in my spare time. Capice?  
  
Three more parts to go! I hope they're all not as long as this one =P  
  
Comments and stuff welcome of course.  
  
  
Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey  



	10. Resentments

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language. 

*************************************************************************  


Pokemon Master 

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez. 

All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm 

Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions. 

************************************************************************* 

Part 10 - Resentments  
  


Cold, so biting cold. As she hugged herself around her slim shoulders,  
folds of her ice-blue cloak blew out in front of her by the biting winds  
at her back. She stared out at the black tumbling waters of the vast  
ocean. From her perch upon a seaside cliff that seemed to be made  
entirely of ice, she remained silent and still, even as her high heels  
seemed to hold her unnaturally steady upon the sheer slippery surface. 

Cold to suit her frozen soul. It was what she was after all. To tell the  
truth, she didn't know how she could still be alive with her very heart  
unbeating, a block of ice. 

Sea-green eyes blinked once. She could sense them coming. She reached  
within her cloak to remove her small spectacles and put them on  
carefully. 

She watched. 

And waited.  
  


  
  


Nock. Draw. Release. The arrow seemed to glint as it shot straight and  
true over the black waters of the ocean. A distant scream of a gyarados  
as the sharp projectile of steel, wood and fletching shot into one of its  
crimson red eyes. Even from this distance, the roar of the death-cry was  
audible before being replaced by a gurgling, then silence as the black  
scaly head sunk into the turbulent waters. However, more gyarados just  
seemed to replace the one just killed. The large pack continued following  
the white ship relentlessly. 

Ash lowered the large wooden long-bow and reached down for another arrow  
from the quiver laying by his side. He had a great view from his position  
sitting high atop the stern; at the rear of the large ship. His legs  
dangled over the edge of the deck, high over the trailing, bubbling  
waters expelled by the ship's turbine. 

For the past hour or so, the sky had been steadily growing brighter, not  
the same impenetrable darkness that had descended over the world since  
the prophecy of death began, but almost beginning to glow white. It  
seemed to be light reflected from the earth, from the icebergs that grew  
ever so numerous on their voyage south-west. As a result, the biting wind  
was even colder now, cold enough to bite flesh. 

But Ash didn't let it bother him. He felt around in the quiver, not  
dropping his gaze from the pack of gyarados that had been following the  
ship since two days ago. But his fingers touched air. Empty. 

He silently looked over to Pikachu, who scampered over on all fours to  
the pack of hunting gear laying on the deck behind him and placed it by  
his side. 

He took out another arrow. Nock. Draw. Release. Death-cry. He didn't like  
killing pokemon, never had. In fact, once he had been willing to lay his  
life on the line for any of them for any of the lightest reasons. But the  
past years had taught himself a new way of living. If one could call it  
that. 

Concentrating on the arrows again, he focused on his targets. Anyway,   
these were different. These were monstrosities - failed creations. They   
would stop at nothing but at the destruction of every single living   
thing on the planet. 

He heard the hatch open behind him and a person step out, but continued  
concentrating on the bow, the arrow. Nock. Draw. Release. Death-cry.  
"Hey, Duplica," he said without turning around. 

A pause. Then a light laugh. "I guess it was my overly sensuous presence  
that gave me away," she said lightly from behind him. Then in a more  
serious tone, "So, Ashy-boy, this is where you've been hiding. You've  
largely been avoiding everyone ever since you regained consciousness."  
She watched him release another arrow, felling yet another gyarados in  
the distance. "I was wondering who was thinning out those numbers." She  
flopped down by his side, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the  
roof and over the trailing waters like him. "I can sit here, can't I? I  
haven't seen you since ..." She hesitated. "Since we all got split up." 

He nodded. "As long as you don't say the 'M' word." He lowered the bow  
and looked at her. "There's something I've been thinking about a long  
time now. Tell me the truth, Duplica. What really happened back at  
Cerulean?" 

"Ahem." She brushed her windblown hair away from her eyes and looked  
away. "You mean you don't remember?" 

"Obviously not," he said dryly. 

"Misty didn't tell you?" 

He frowned. "I said not to even say the 'M' word." 

"Just what is wrong with you two?" she said in exasperation. "Whenever  
you're apart, both of you seem so sad, but when you're together all you  
do is fight and fight-" 

He cut her off. "Duplica, don't try to change the subject." 

For a moment she got a stubborn look on her face, then she looked down at  
the ocean. "Well, to put it short, well ... you kind of attacked us.  
Well, mostly Mist- I mean, you-know-who." 

"What?" He knew something happened, but nothing like what Duplica had  
just told him. 

"Pika!" Pikachu said in shock, who was also listening by his other side. 

Duplica nervously cracked her knuckles. "It looked like you were  
seriously out of it ... no emotions, nothing. I thought you were  
brainwashed or something." 

Ash desperately thought back from his dim recollections of that night. He  
and Pikachu had been just about to destroy the Cerulean tower when  
someone ... Sabrina ... Sabrina had did some sort of psychic attack on  
him. He couldn't remember exactly what she did though. Except she must  
have been successful ... 

Duplica hurriedly continued. "But you didn't do anything serious - to us  
anyway. And Mist- um, you-know-who, is still up and kicking so you can't  
have done anything to her. And you're back to your normal self, mostly  
anyway. So what's the big problem? It was that crazy bitch, Sabrina's  
fault. Who, I might add, I don't trust one tiny bit. After spouting off   
this corny stuff about destroying the Elite Four and Master Garick, she   
just up and leaves." 

He thought hard. "The thing is, that I can't remember exactly what  
happened back at South Lavender either." His eyes closed. "After Brock  
took me out, it's all a blur." At the thought of Brock, his throat  
tightened. He still felt terrible about his old best friend. Like one of  
the foundations his life was built from was just suddenly ripped away  
from him. He knew that he should be feeling outraged about him and Misty,  
but curiously, all he felt was some sort of emptiness. If Misty truly did  
love Brock over him, who was he to complain? Maybe he should just release  
him and let her be. He shook his head. "I don't even know how we captured  
him." 

"Brock? Mist- I mean, you-know-who, told me that after you were knocked  
out, Brock and Valdera had this huge fight which ended up destroying the  
entire base. And uh, some sort of reaction from Valdera's element mucked  
up with the Forbidden Pokemon there and uh, captured him ... or  
something." She shrugged. "At that point, yours truly led the rescue  
squad and evacuated mostly everyone." 

"Mostly everyone?" 

"Well, Koga and Aya were nowhere to be found as well as a few other  
people, uhh ..." She waved her hand. "Who I can't quite remember the  
names off the top of my head." Then she clicked her fingers. "And you  
of course, who we fished out of the ocean the next day, which you already  
know about." Suddenly the wind grew even colder, blowing Duplica's long  
blue hair from behind her and over her cheek. She shivered in the long  
coat she wore over her slender shoulders. "Brrrr ... is it getting colder  
or what? I wish I could just make myself up some woollies to keep me   
warm, but those Forbidden would just find us even more tempting if they   
sensed any sort of power disturbance out here in the open." She hugged   
herself. "As it is, I had to borrow some real clothes for the moment   
from Mist - I mean, you-know-who's sisters." 

Ash turned his attention back on the gyarados following them and with one  
hand, swiped away a lock of black hair which had fallen in his face from  
the wind. "Yeah, even though we're close to the Seafoam Islands, you'd  
think it would get warmer with us getting closer to Cinnabar, but it's  
just been getting colder and colder." He indicated the icebergs they were  
passing. "What else is weird is that we've been sailing in League  
controlled territory for some time now, but we still haven't seen any  
League vessels." He nocked another arrow and shot it. Another gyarados  
screamed as its eye was pierced and killed. 

Duplica squinted. "That's some really good shooting. It must be at least  
two hundred yards and I can hardly even see them from here. The only way  
you could be killing them is by hitting them dead-on in the eye where  
they're vulnerable." 

Ash shrugged one shoulder. "I had lots of practise during the Dark  
Pokemon Wars." 

They fell to silence as Ash methodically shot down more and more  
gyarados. Although, more just seemed to replace every single one, like  
there was a bottomless supply of them just beneath the surface of the  
water. 

Duplica shivered again. "You know, it's almost time for dinner. How about  
you halt off your fun and let's go down and warm up? And you can't avoid  
everyone on this boat forever. It's another two more days before we   
reach the Viridian Gulf and head off to Indigo Plateau." 

Ash lowered the bow. "Alright, why not?" 

He didn't want Misty to think that she had run him off. She was the one  
who did the running after all.  
  


  
  


"So, like, you see, during the Dark Wars, we somehow got separated from  
the rest of the fleet and were cut off for quite some time somewhere  
around the Seafoam Islands. Afterward, when we heard what the Pokemon  
League were doing, we decided to stick around and help all the natives  
protect themselves during which-" 

"Daisy, I don't think Misty is like listening," Lily interrupted her  
with an exasperated sigh, as she combed her shoulder-length pink hair  
with a hairbrush. 

Daisy looked at her youngest, red-haired sister who was now sitting down  
on the opposite couch and staring absentmindedly out the port-hole. She  
was rolling and unrolling a lock of her red hair around a finger.  
"So Misty, are you like listening or what?" 

Misty continued to look vacantly out the window. "I'm listening." 

Lily dropped the comb, leaned over and waved her hand beside Misty's  
face. There was no reaction. "Misty, your panties are on fire," she said  
in a straight tone. 

"That's nice," Misty replied automatically. 

"Misty, your tit is like, hanging out of your dress," Lily tried again. 

"That's nice," Misty said. 

Erika stepped into the room in her green cloak, swinging her long black  
staff around in circles with one hand. "No, this is how you do it girls."  
She smiled. "Misty, Ash is here," she said softly. 

"Wha-what!" Misty immediately said in a panicked tone as she rapidly sat  
up straight and looked from side to side. Her blue eyes heated up with  
the promise of conflict. 

"See, like that's why I never got a boyfriend," Lily declared, leaning  
back on the couch and putting her hands behind her head. 

Daisy crossed her arms. "And I always thought it was because you were so  
... how you say, effervescent," she said dryly. 

"That too," Lily agreed. 

Daisy then turned her attention back to Misty and tilted her blonde head  
to the side, blue eyes inquiring. "Just, like, what is wrong with you  
little sister? What is up between you and Ash? Last time we saw you years  
ago, you were all so lovey-dovey." 

Misty looked away. "Things change." 

"Is this some kind of lover's spat?" Daisy asked Erika. 

Erika sighed as she walked off to the corner of the room, this time  
spinning her staff around from hand to hand. "If it is, it's been going  
on for five years." 

"Well, little sister's always been stubborn," Lily stated. 

Something beeped and Daisy quickly pulled a small device from her belt  
and looked at it. "Hmmmm, Violet needs us at the helm. Misty, we'll have  
to like continue this talk later." She rolled her eyes. "If it can even  
be called a talk with you mostly just sitting there. Oh, and dinner  
should be ready soon, although I don't know how it'll turn out with that  
doctor girl doing the cooking..." 

"Giselle?" Erika asked. "Oh, she may be a bitch, but I have to admit she  
is a great cook." 

Lily looked sideways at Misty. "She said she was mixing up something  
extra special for Ash." 

Misty narrowed her eyes. "Really? Well I'm a much better cook than she  
is!" 

Daisy had a sceptical expression on her face. "Really now. Well, anyway  
we have to go." She and Lily stood up from where they were sitting on the  
couch, smoothed down their sailor jackets and left the room. 

For a while it was silent, except for the sounds of the air swishing as  
Erika practised with her staff while Misty stared out the porthole  
at the black ocean again. Finally, Erika looked at Misty with a concerned  
look on her face. She propped her staff against the wall and grabbed a  
hand-towel from a nearby table. Wiping her face as she sat down on the  
couch, she joined her. "Okay, finally I get you to myself. You've almost  
been avoiding everyone as much as Ash-" 

"Don't say the A-word," Misty interrupted. 

"Okay, you-know-who, then," Erika said exasperated. "Now about what I,  
how you say, 'learned', back at South Lavender ... I know you weren't ...  
'like that' with Brock, even though Brock may have thought so, come to  
think of it ... but anyway, why don't you tell Ash the truth?" 

Misty crossed her legs out in front of her. "I told him the truth ... and  
... he won't believe me. So, later I thought, fine! I don't need him!"  
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as Erika. A  
tear betrayed her by trickling out of one eye, but she angrily wiped it  
away from a fold of her blue cloak. "And he is such a hypocrite!" 

"What do you mean?" 

She looked away. "I-I, can't tell you." 

Erika suddenly got a burst of intuition. "Is this what caused you to  
leave him five years ago?" 

She hesitated, then nodded slowly. 

"Don't you think it's time to tell someone what happened?" 

The room fell to silence again. The sounds of the ship moving was soft in  
the background, the water swishing and the floor gently rocking with the  
waves. 

Misty finally turned to Erika with pain-filled blue eyes. "I-I ... oh  
Erika!" It all just started flooding out of her as the dam holding off  
her emotions broke. What she saw that day came back fully into her mind.  
Erika rushed over and hugged her. As Misty told her story in short sobs  
and jumbled sentences, Erika's green eyes began to narrow menacingly.  
  


  
  


The dining room of the ship was fairly large, more than enough space to  
accommodate all the escapees from South Lavender. Which wasn't quite   
that many, now that Ash finally got to see everyone in one place. Aside   
from the table he was sitting at which was in the far corner, there was   
only about three other tables of people. There was the Captain and Nurse   
Joy from Castle Town sitting at the opposite table along with Bruno,   
Junior and a green-haired woman who he hadn't seen before although he   
thought was a bit familiar. There was *her* table, with *her* sisters,   
and Erika and her Trainers - the table he had been purposely trying to   
ignore. And finally, there was a table of miscellaneous Trainers and   
people he didn't really know, many of whom were all looking at him with   
scared looks on their faces. 

He tried to ignore the stares as he ate silently, lifting his chopsticks  
methodically. Pikachu munched on a red apple sitting on the table next to  
his bowl, his only other companion at the table besides Duplica. "I don't  
think this was such a good idea," he said softly. 

Duplica, dressed in one of her 'own' outfits now that she was below  
decks - a smallish black dress with a slitted skirt, and open at the neck  
- just waved them off as she munched on her own food. "Maybe they're all  
staring at me," she said modestly, in-between mouthfuls. 

"What about the women?" Ash said, smiling a little now. 

Duplica tossed her head, cascading blue hair over her shoulder. "Maybe  
they're gay." 

He laughed. "You're a riot, Duplica." 

"Pika," Pikachu agreed. 

"Ash!" a girl suddenly cried from behind him. Everyone turned to look,  
even *her* and Bruno's table. It was Laselle, dressed in a green jumper  
and skirt. Her brown eyes were shining underneath long black hair. "You  
came to dinner!" 

"Hi, Laselle," Ash greeted her. 

"Laselle, you didn't have to shout it that loud," Duplica groaned. 

Ash blushed as Laselle suddenly leaned over and hugged him around the  
neck. "It's just that I haven't seen him in so long," she explained  
happily. 

"It's only been about three or four days," Duplica said, rolling her  
eyes. 

Laselle let go of Ash's neck. "Well, I've only known him about a week, so  
three or four days is a lifetime!" All of a sudden, her eyes widened as  
she spotted someone behind Ash's back. "You!" Her voice grew icy and her  
eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" 

Ash turned around. Behind him and approaching was Giselle, looking as  
perfect as a model, her long dark hair trailing in the air behind her.  
She was wearing an elegant green dress over her slim form and a white  
apron which read, 'world's most beautiful cook' on the front in bold  
letters. She stopped by Ash's side and smirked her red lips. "Didn't  
you know I was stationed at South Lavender, Laselle my dear." She looked  
down patronisingly at the shorter girl. 

Ash's eyes widened as he looked at the two of them. There was something  
about the two of them... 

Laselle lifted her chin. "Unfortunately not." 

"Well, you're certainly growing more beautiful with age - you're starting  
to look more and more like me," Giselle said in a superior tone as she  
folded her arms and leaned on one high-heeled foot. 

Ash tallied in his head. Same long black-brown hair, same brown eyes,  
similar facial features... "Are you two related by any chance?" 

"Unfortunately yes," Laselle spat. 

He looked at Giselle with incredulous eyes. "You're her *mother*?" 

Giselle looked offended. "I don't think it was possible for me to have  
kids when I was six years old. She's my little sister." 

"Oh." 

Duplica sighed and kicked him under the table. "Sometimes I really worry  
about you, Ash..."  
  


  
  


"So, like Ash decided to join us for dinner this time," Violet said as  
she eyed the handsome young man in the black clothes at the far table. He  
was surrounded by women and looking a bit bewildered. 

Lily nudged Misty in the shoulder from beside her. "Well, aren't you  
going to say anything?" 

"He's not my boyfriend anymore," Misty said quietly as she picked at her  
food. But there was a telltale flush of red on her cheeks. 

Erika just glared. "Leave him, he's probably enjoying himself. We have  
more important things to discuss anyhow. Like whether we should believe  
anything that Sabrina said. For all we know, she could be luring us all  
to the Palace of the Elite Four to get slaughtered all in one place." 

Misty agreed, grateful for the change of subject. "I know. It just seems  
too simple. Just how far can we trust her?" 

Violet rubbed her chin. "It seems to me that you like need someone who  
knows her well." She flicked her head of hair coloured like her name,  
in Ash's direction, who now seemed to be trying to break up a fight  
between Giselle and Laselle. "Wasn't Ash part of the Pokemon League  
longer than anyone else here? He's worked with her before. I say we  
should ask him to join this conversation." 

Misty banged her hand on the table, clattering the cutlery. "No, I don't  
even want to talk to him!" A cold aura began to emit from her body. 

"Little sister, you're like, being totally illogical," Violet scolded  
her. "What he tells us could be the meaning of life and death. Now are  
you going to let some silly lover's spat be the death of us all?" 

Misty looked away, abashed, letting her aura drop. "Sorry. Just don't  
expect me to even talk to him." 

Violet looked at Erika's young medic, Joy. "Would you please call Master  
Ash over here? Tell him we like need to discuss something with him." Then  
she paused. "Wait, get Mistress Duplica and Master Bruno over here too.   
They may know something as well." 

"Yes, Mistress," the young nurse said as she stood up and approached  
Ash's table. 

Something cracked. Daisy turned to her little sister to see that she had  
frozen her chopsticks solid and snapped them in her hands. "Careful with  
those. We already have to use so much energy to keep us warm, its not  
helping with you acting like a freezer all the time." 

Misty just lifted her chin defiantly. Violet sighed. She wished Daisy was  
here, but no, she had to get the easy job of captaining the ship at this  
time-slot. 

Then they were standing around the table. Ash, Duplica and Bruno. Already  
Ash and Misty were flinging daggers at each other through their eyes.  
Bruno and Duplica sat down, leaving only one seat vacant. The one next to  
Misty. 

Ash turned from his glare-fight and looked in horror at the only space  
left. "I am *not* sitting next to her," he said in a dangerous voice. 

"He is *not* sitting next to me," Misty stated in a voice just as  
dangerous. 

Violet threw up her hands. "This is just rich! Like, how can you two be  
so immature?" 

"Are not!" they both said in unison. They looked at each other, then  
blushed. 

Lily smirked. "Just sit down Ash. Are you afraid of her or something? Are  
you afraid of him, Misty?" 

"No!" they denied simultaneously. 

"Then just sit down already so we can get to business!" Lily ordered,  
surprising everyone with her firm tone. 

Ash blinked his light-brown eyes. He sat down obediently. 

Violet silently looked at the ceiling. Remind me to be nicer to Lily, she  
thought to herself. She looked at Ash, who blew some stray strands of  
black hair out of his eyes with a slight breath and returned her look.  
"You weren't conscious when Sabrina revealed the supposed way of closing  
this so-called Forbidden Gate, but you know of it don't you? You've known  
Sabrina longer than any of us. What are your thoughts?" 

Ash fiddled with a piece of frozen chopstick that was in front of him and  
looked at Misty for a second. Then he answered. "Well, Sabrina's always  
been the most mysterious person I've ever met, well, maybe the  
second-most, I'm not sure. But I don't think I'd be lying if I said that  
she seemed to be closer to me than most other League Trainers or Pokemon  
Masters. My opinion is that ... well she could in fact be telling the  
truth." He took a sideways glance at Misty and his eyes glowed golden for  
a second. "But most probably not the whole truth." 

Misty tossed her red hair over her shoulder contemptuously. 

"It does sound like that it makes a certain kind of sense," Duplica  
offered. "There's something in the prophecies that state the towers being  
linked to souls. The Elite Four and Master Garick must be those souls.  
Naturally, if those souls were put out of the picture..." 

Bruno was thinking, his square chin resting against huge fingers. "You  
actually buy that?" he asked in his deep voice. "Either it's one big  
deliberate trap, or she could be just setting us directly against the  
League so that we'd destroy each other. Do you really want to kill Brock?  
Because that's what we'd have to do if we believe her. He *is* one of the  
Elite Four - we know that now. My replacement in fact." 

"No one kills Brock," Ash stated firmly as he folded his arms over his  
black shirt. 

"Why are you sticking up for him?" Bruno looked puzzled. "It's obvious  
now that he's been against you from day one." His rust-coloured eyes  
flashed menacingly. "We were all made fools of. I trusted him like a  
brother." 

Ash shook his head. "He wasn't like that in the beginning." He stared  
down at the table. "Maybe I can help him. I-I, just have to." 

"Great, just great," Erika said mockingly. "Our best bet to win this  
thing and we can't even put that into action. How about you, Misty?" She  
looked at her friend. "Would you kill Brock if it meant saving the  
world?" 

Misty looked away and picked specks of nothing from her blue dress. "I-I  
don't know." 

"I'd rather let Brock and Misty go off together," Ash said. 

Stony silence greeted his words. 

Then a wet noodle splattered on his cheek. He turned his head in the  
direction it came from. Misty. 

She had an innocent expression on her face. "What?" she asked, with a  
lifting of one slim eyebrow. 

Ash reached over to snag a rice ball by poking it with a frozen   
chopstick and then sneezed on purpose. The rice ball flew on to Misty's   
nose and splattered into a white gooey mess. It made her look like a   
clown. An angry clown. "Oops," he said, smiling lopsidedly. "That was an  
accident." 

Misty slipped forward deliberately, throwing her bowl of food forward so  
it splattered on Ash's head. Wet mushy stuff dribbled all through his  
fine black hair and ran down his face. "Oops. That was too," she said  
with a gleam in her eye. 

Soon, it just degenerated into a full-on food-fight between Ash and  
Misty. Noodles, rice, sushi and everything else were fair game to be used  
as weapons. The whole room was silently staring at the two of them  
sitting down next to each other and mashing food into each other's faces. 

Violet shook her head. These were the people who were going to  
save them? 

And then suddenly the floor seemed to jerk violently underneath them as  
if the ship had been hit. Violet's beeper let out a shrill sound and  
she snatched it from her belt and looked at it. "Damn, we're under  
attack! Daisy says its a Pokemon League ship at six-o-clock!"  
  


  
  


"Like, they didn't even show up on the ship's scanner, so they managed to  
knock out our submerging capability before I detected them!" Daisy was  
shouting as she wrestled with the wheel on the captain's seat. The black  
ocean through the ship's view screen in front of her looked rougher than  
before, and the floor was noticeably rising up and down with the waves. 

Violet and Lily immediately rushed over and took their positions on the  
seats by her sides. Panels opened with a whooshing sound and control  
sticks and switches were rapidly set and positioned. Lily threw on  
headphones and a mike while Violet pulled down a pair of electronic  
goggles and placed them over her head. 

Other than Misty's sisters in the bridge, there was also Ash, Misty,  
Duplica, Erika, and Bruno all inside the sophisticated control and  
driving room of the ship. As always, Pikachu was sitting on Ash's  
shoulder although the black electric mouse was actively trying to avoid  
the gooey mess all over Ash's head and face. 

"What kind of League ship is it?" Ash asked as he wiped some liquid away  
from his eyes which was dribbling down from his hair. 

Violet fiddled with the goggles. "It looks like a Class Three Pokemon  
League Destroyer Battleship! It's huge!" 

"Shit. Daisy, can this ship outrun it?" 

Daisy was still wrestling with the wheel. "Like, I don't know yet. Lily,  
how's the hydro-turbines? I think number two is giving me a spot of  
trouble." 

Lily pulled out a keyboard and began tapping on it furiously with her  
slim fingers. Readings came out of the small monitor in flashing red  
letters. "Like I think number two's been damaged! It must have got hit  
when they took out the ballast. Report says heat, liquid and electrical  
overload. What the hell did they hit us with?" 

"I think it was a combined fire, water and electric blast," Daisy said,  
frowning as she skilfully manoeuvred the ship past two icebergs. The  
floor tilted left, then right, causing Ash, Misty, Duplica, Bruno and  
Erika to hold on to handholds on the ceiling for balance. 

Duplica gasped as she held herself steady. "They're using direct  
elemental attacks? Are they crazy? Any Forbidden Pokemon in the area will  
sense it and surround us all!" 

"I thought the Pokemon League control the Forbidden?" Bruno asked  
curiously. "They wouldn't be attacked too, would they?" 

Duplica shook her head. "You should have seen the League army at South  
Lavender. They were totally ripped apart by Forbidden Pokemon. Maybe they  
don't control them as much as they think they do." 

"So we can't outrun them?" Misty asked her sister. 

Daisy looked at her monitor and pushed her blonde hair back behind her  
ears with one hand. "I don't think so. We're losing like too much speed,  
especially with the large amount of icebergs that we have to dodge now.  
We can't outrun them or escape by submerging, with number two damaged and  
the ballast gone." 

"I guess we'll just have to fight then, or somehow damage their ship  
enough that they can't follow," Ash said as he took out a pair  
of fingerless black gloves from his pocket and slipped them on to his  
hands. 

Misty frowned. "You're not thinking of using lightning are you?" 

Ash spun away from her, walking briskly to the hatch as his hooded cloak  
materialised over his form out of dark floating shadows. "I can fight  
hand-to-hand. Bruno, you coming?" 

Bruno cracked his knuckles and summoned his maroon cloak over his  
muscular shoulders. His dark eyes were eager. "Sure, I haven't had a good  
fist-fight in ages - a good one, meaning one that I can actually win," he  
said dryly. 

"Count me in also," Erika said as her green cloak sparkled over her dress  
with the smell of flowers. She extended her hands as she summoned her  
black wooden staff into them. "I haven't been practising for nothing." 

Duplica smiled, but shook her head. "I'd love to come too, but I'd  
probably just get in your way. I'm no good without using my transform  
ability." She looked at Misty out the corner of her eye. "Misty?" 

Misty flared blue as her cloak solidified around her body. "I can fight  
physically if I have to." She silently dared Ash to object with a flat  
stare. 

Ash shrugged the shoulder Pikachu wasn't sitting on. "If you think you  
can." 

Misty pulled out blue fingerless gloves, which matched her cloak and   
dress and put them on slowly. "I know I can." 

Daisy let out a breath of disbelief as she continued to pilot the ship.  
"Children, like, please. Just get out there and get that damn ship off  
our tail!"  
  


  
  


"They're shooting a line!" Bruno called up from below, at the starboard  
side of the ship. "They're trying to snag us!" 

A huge steel anchor with a thick rope attached was flying toward them  
from the large dark-blue Pokemon League ship which was about fifty or  
sixty feet behind them and closing. It crashed somewhere on the front  
deck and got caught on a railing. 

"Pikachu, the bow!" Ash said quickly from his position atop the  
upper-deck at the stern of the ship. 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu handed him the bow and the quiver that they had left  
up here before they went down for dinner. 

Immediately, Ash nocked an arrow, aimed and shot, cutting the rope before  
it could tighten up and pull them off course. His hair flapping over his  
eyes by the freezing cold wind did nothing to distract his concentration. 

"Nice shot," Erika grudgingly said from beside him, the wind also blowing  
her shortish black hair and cloak around violently. 

Ash didn't say anything and lowered the bow as he turned his attention  
back on the League ship. Erika had strangely been acting hostile toward  
him lately. If he said anything, she'd probably cut him down as quickly  
as he had cut the rope. 

The ship tilted as they dodged another iceberg at full speed and he  
quickly grabbed on to the port-side railing at the edge of the upper-deck  
to hold him steady, Erika following suit. Pikachu grabbed on to his  
ankle. 

For a moment, the League ship was out of view with the massive  
whitish-blue iceberg blocking their field of vision. He shivered as the  
wind grew even colder. 

When they passed the huge iceberg, the League ship was even closer and a  
person was now visible, standing high on the front of it, at the point of  
the bow. It was a tall woman. She was dressed in long black overcoat  
with dark-blue hair worn in a long braid, which floated behind her in the  
wind. The right side of her face was covered by her long bangs, but the  
half of her face that he could see was attractive, although there was  
something about her expression that made him uneasy. 

"You can't escape," she said, her voice somehow amplified by her ship so  
that they could hear. "Halt!" she ordered. 

"I don't think so!" Ash shouted back over the wind. 

Her eye focused on him. "Ah, Ash is it not? So we do indeed have the  
right ship. Halt your ship, I wish to discuss something with you." 

"Discuss?" Erika whispered to him. 

Ash looked at her and shrugged. He turned back to the huge League ship  
with the woman standing on it. "What do you want?" he shouted. 

"It has come to my attention that you harbour something, or rather  
someone, that I want," the woman replied. Her voice still being amplified  
so that it could be heard easily. "You will surrender him to me or face  
the consequences." 

Puzzled, Ash smoothed his wind-blown hair away from his eyes again.  
"Someone?" 

Surprisingly, the woman seemed to growl. "The Rock Master. Brock. Give  
him to me!" Her voice was now angry, when before she had been calm. 

Footsteps sounded behind him and Ash turned to see Misty arriving from  
the lower-deck, via a ladder on the port-side of the ship. Her long red  
hair was being blown forward by the wind, but she didn't seem to be  
affected by the cold at all; not even any goose bumps. "This is weird,"  
she said as she stopped by his side and tried to stop her blue cloak from  
blowing everywhere. "If this is the Pokemon League, wouldn't they be  
attacking us furiously by now? They're close enough, but all they've  
tried to do so far is snag us with lines, besides disable our best chance  
for escape." 

"They want Brock for some reason," Ash said, shrugging his shoulders. 

"What for?" 

Ash turned back to the huge ship following them. It was even closer now  
so that in a few more minutes the woman who was standing on its tip would  
be able to jump down to their ship. "Is this some sort of rescue?" he  
shouted up at her. 

The half of her mouth that was visible tilted upward and then the woman  
laughed hard, looking up at the pulsing grey sky. Then she looked down at  
him and her eye flashed, brown he could see now. She was starting to look  
a bit familiar too, although it was hard to tell with half her face  
covered by her blue hair. 

"Not exactly," the woman finally said after her laughter had died down,  
although she was still letting out a few chuckles. "I'm going to kill  
him." 

Misty suddenly snapped her fingers. "Hey, you're Brock's girlfriend! I  
thought you looked familiar." 

Ash blinked. Holy. She was too! "You're Suzie, the Pokemon Breeder lady!"  
he exclaimed. As far as he knew, she wasn't part of the Pokemon League.  
Was she the captain of this ship? Why was she the captain of this ship? 

The woman suddenly stopped her laughing, instantly angry again. "I'm no  
longer Brock's girlfriend, haven't been for at least three years now; and  
what a mistake that was. But I *am* Suzie, you're right about that, Ash.  
Now I know you have Brock, hand him over." 

"No way!" Ash refused. 

Erika elbowed him in the side. "Are you sure that's wise, Ash? What  
Sabrina told us... she could be doing us a favour." 

"Look, we don't know if she's lying or not." He folded his arms. "And I  
won't be forced into anything." 

Misty just cracked her knuckles. "Just get ready for a fight, Erika. When  
Ash gets this stubborn, there's nothing else we can do." 

"Oh, shut up," Ash said. 

"No, you shut up," Misty replied. 

Suzie glared at them. "I was willing to negotiate this peaceably, but now  
I'll just have to do this by force." The League ship was right on their  
tail now and she was looking directly down at them, with her arms folded.  
"I have a friend of yours here Ash, that wanted to get another crack at  
you. I have him here just in case you wanted to be stubborn." 

Ash stepped sideways, his folds of his cloak blowing across his face and  
prepared himself. "I'm not afraid of anyone," he called up to her. 

"Pika pika!" Pikachu agreed by his foot, cheeks sparking dark  
electricity. 

A tall, muscular figure in a light-brown hooded cloak stepped out next to  
Suzie. With one swift movement, he threw off the cowl, revealing his  
full features. 

Ash gasped. 

"Hello, Ash." It was a hauntingly familiar, lilting accent. He had spiky  
green hair and brown eyes. Or eye. He had only one left. There was a long  
jagged scar which ran from the top of his forehead, through his  
non-existent left eye down to the bottom corner of his hard mouth. 

"AJ, is that you?" 

"You should know, the one person who destroyed my dreams back at the  
semi-finals of the Pokemon League tournaments," AJ said in a resentful  
tone. He tapped his scar. "And later gave me this." 

Ash stepped backward, tightening his black cloak on his shoulders.  
"That was an accident." 

"Accident-shmackcident!" AJ roared. Then he shook his head and composed  
himself. "Well now, besides me, this whole ship seems to have somethin  
against you, Ash. These here fellows I met just now, want to kill you  
too. You're a mighty popular fellow, Ash." He stepped aside as three more  
cloaked figures walked from behind him and stood at the ship's railing.  
One was in blue, one was in red and the last was in yellow. They were  
all of equal height at about six feet each. 

All three of them simultaneously threw the hoods of their cloaks back.  
The colours of their hair matched their cloaks and elements. "Ash, we  
heard you killed our little brother," they said in unison. 

"The Eevee brothers?" Ash called up to them. "What are you talking  
about?" 

"You've killed so many people, you don't remember? His name was Mikey!" 

Surprisingly, Misty stepped forward. "That's a lie! Ash didn't kill  
Mikey, it was your damned Missingno at Mount Moon!" 

The blue-cloaked brother sneered down at her. "Why should we believe you?  
You're nothing but Ash's whore! You'd say anything to save his butt." 

Misty's eyes flared and a blue aura of cold arose around her, possible to  
feel even in the artic wind. "You come down here, Rainer, and say that,  
and I'll show you a Water Master's power." 

Rainer folded his arms. "Don't mind if I do. I haven't had an equal  
element fight in a long time." 

Ash glared at Misty. "Watch it, you know we can't use direct attacks  
against them, even if they can against us." 

"Damn it!" Misty cursed, letting her power die down. 

Erika spoke up. "Look if we're all going to fight, you can't use any of  
your element-based attacks! Otherwise we'll all be bait for Forbidden  
Pokemon." 

Suzie let out an uncaring breath. "We're of the Pokemon League so they  
won't touch us, but they can and will 'touch' you." She put her hands on  
her hips. "Last chance. Give me Brock and I may let you free to do what  
you want - for as long as you have left to live anyway." 

"No dice, Suzie," AJ said, "we also want Ash now." 

"That wasn't part of the deal," Suzie protested, turning to glare at him. 

"Look," Ash interrupted, "if it was just me, then sure, I'd give myself  
up. But I can't let you have Brock. Sorry." 

"Who gives a shit about Brock?" AJ growled. "I'm finally gonna pay you  
back for what you did to me, you piece of shit! Sandshrew, let's git  
him!" 

"Shrew!" A small yellow rodent with armoured skin leapt up on to his  
shoulder, and AJ leaped over the ship's railing and dived down with a  
flying kick directly at Ash, light-brown cloak floating behind him. 

Ash flipped away, barely dodging the kick, as AJ came down with a  
crunching sound on the deck, exactly where Ash's head was just a  
millisecond before. 

Misty was about to join in when Rainer jumped down, blasting icy energy  
from his fingertips as he did so, causing her to leap away in the  
opposite direction. 

That left the red-cloaked brother and the yellow-cloaked one to jump down  
and take on Erika. Suzie signalled and her huge ship began to fall back,  
separating itself from them.  
  


  
  


"Ah heh heh, this doesn't seem exactly fair now, boys ..." Erika said,  
backing away with her staff spinning around in one hand. "And I don't  
even know your names." 

The red-cloaked brother with flaming hair grinned evilly as he stepped  
forward, hands bursting into flickering fire. "Well now, how rude of us.  
I'm Pyro, while my bro in yellow is Sparky." 

Sparky winked as he also stepped forward, his yellow cloak putting the  
truth to his name. 

"Is it alright if I take Sparky?" Erika asked flippantly. "I don't really  
like fire as you'd imagine." 

Suddenly Bruno joined her, having just arrived from the lower-deck, his  
huge fists raised and ready. "I'll take hot-head here." 

Erika sighed gratefully. "Bruno, if you weren't so big and scary, I could  
kiss you."  
  


  
  


Ash blocked another punch with a complex twist of his arm and stepped  
backward again. "Look, AJ, I don't want to fight you. Especially when one  
wrong move could kill us all." 

"Bullshit," AJ said, advancing again. His spiky green hair was unmoving  
against the wind. "Do you think after all this time searching for you,  
I'm gonna let you off scot-free? Especially when I've completed my  
training! Training meant to stop you personally! Any electric attack you  
throw at me will be ineffective." He abruptly threw his Sandshrew into  
the air. "Sandshrew, Earth Blade!" 

"Shrew!" the sandshrew squeaked and then the deck of the ship seemed to  
tremble as the rodent pokemon flashed and then reformed itself into  
energy as if it were being sucked into a poke-ball, but instead  
metamorphised into a curved broad sword, the same colour of light-brown  
as AJ's cloak. AJ grabbed it out the air and began spinning it around the  
fingers of his right hand in front of him. The air made whistling sounds  
at each rotation. 

"That's right, I've even learned your little trick," AJ said quietly,  
still spinning his sword around. He turned his head, his single eye  
flashing hatred. "Where's your rat? Sandshrew will rip it apart this  
time." 

Faster than he could blink, a small shadowy figure seemed to streak past  
AJ's head from behind, startling him. 

"Pika!" It was Pikachu who leaped beside Ash's foot on all fours, tail in  
the air. His cobalt-blue eyes were glowing, casting an eerie light over  
its night-dark body. Abruptly, he leaped up high on to Ash's left  
shoulder. 

AJ sneered. "Ha! It didn't like me calling it that did it? I hate your  
Pikachu almost as much - no more, than I hate you. How can its attacks  
have beaten Sandshrew back at the semi-finals? It's impossible." 

Ash shook his head. "Get over it already, AJ. Pokemon League was years  
ago. You came third or fourth, that's still a high rank. And it hardly  
matters now, when the whole world is at stake." 

AJ's black eye glowed malevolently. "Third? Fourth? You ruined my dream,  
Ash, and that was to become first. THE Pokemon Master. The greatest one  
of all time. Ever since you beat me, my dream changed. My dream to have  
revenge. Except you stopped me last time and took my eye. But now, I've  
trained up enough to destroy you." He seemed to be waiting. "Well? Aren't  
you going to form your rat into a sword and fight me?" 

Ash shook his head. "Weren't you listening? Any stray elemental energy  
will attract Forbidden Pokemon to us like fish to a hooked worm." 

"Fool," AJ said, shaking his head as he stopped spinning his sword and  
held it aloft. "Then this won't be as much fun as I thought." He  
sidestepped quickly in a spin and slashed impossibly fast. 

Ash just managed to dodge it, although the sword cut off a part of his  
cloak. "I can still fight you hand-to-hand," he said as his cloak  
regenerated itself out of dark shadows. 

"Don't be so confident," AJ advised as he shifted the momentum of his  
missed swing into an even faster and stronger side-slash. 

This time, Ash weaved in close, shifting himself around the swung blade  
lithely and flashed into an uncountable series of rapid punches and  
palm strikes on AJ's face and chest. He finished the series with a  
backward hand flip, kicking AJ on the chin and sending him flying. Then   
he completed the flip and landed in a crouching position. 

But AJ recovered in midair and executed a sideways twist to land his   
feet on the deck with a soft thump. A trickle of blood ran out of his   
left nostril and he sniffed. "Not bad." He chuckled without humour.   
"But I marked you too." 

Ash sucked in his breath as the upper-arm of his cloak suddenly split  
open and blood ran out of a fresh deep cut. 

"Cha!" Pikachu said in shock from on top of his other shoulder at seeing  
the slash. 

"And here's another new trick I taught Sandshrew just for you." AJ lifted  
his sword and held it in both hands. "Sandshrew, Electric Inversion!" All  
at once, the blade of his sword seemed to spark on and off. 

Instantly Ash doubled over as an intense pain flared inside his head.  
Pikachu fell off his shoulder and on to the ground like a dead weight. It  
felt like hammers beating against his skull. Dimly he could sense that  
Pikachu was in agonising pain as well and was rolled up in a ball  
clutching his head. 

AJ grinned. "How do you like that? I spent years perfecting this. It  
actually destabilises the being of anything electric-based within a  
certain radius."  
  


  
  


"C'mon, I thought we were going to have a water fight," Rainer complained  
as he formed a huge ball of ice and water in his palm and then flung it  
at her. 

Misty spun around, letting her long blue cloak nullify it to snow flakes  
which drifted around her. Then she completed the spin and crouched,  
clutching a fold of her mantle. "I can beat you even without using direct  
water attacks." 

Rainer tilted his head. "Are you kidding? A Pokemon Master's  
effectiveness is solely due to the elemental abilities that he wields,  
fighting hand-in-hand with his pokemon. Otherwise we may as well be only  
weak Trainers." He pulled a blue poke-ball from his cloak and threw it.  
"Isn't that right, Vaporeon?" 

The ball split, releasing the four legged and blue marine Pokemon. Its  
black eyes were narrowed as it thrashed its long tail of fins. "Vee!" 

"See, even Vaporeon agrees with me!" Rainer stated triumphantly. 

Misty reached inside her cloak for her own poke-ball and enlarged it in  
her hand. "That's only half the story. A real Pokemon Master is one who  
has a true bond with their Pokemon, understands them, trains them, feels  
what it feels, shares their hurts, loves and conflicts. It isn't just a  
learned trait, you have to be born to it. We'll see how your Vaporeon  
compares to mine." She threw it, releasing her own pokemon to stand in  
front of Rainer's. Her Vaporeon was silent, spines stiffened in  
preparation. 

Rainer chuckled. "A pretty speech, but you've lost this one. My Vaporeon  
is even bigger than yours. Vaporeon, Ice Beam!" 

"Vee!" Rainer's Vaporeon opened its mouth, letting out a stream of icy  
cold directly at Misty's. 

"Have you ever heard the saying, size doesn't matter?" Misty said,  
smiling. "Vaporeon, Coldness Redirect!" 

Misty's Vaporeon didn't say anything as it stood still, letting the Ice  
Beam freeze it in a solid block of ice. 

"Hahaha! Is that your boyfriend's excuse?" Rainer taunted. 

"Well, actually, yes. But he doesn't know what a find he is. What do you  
think is the real reason I followed him around all those years?" she  
said, winking suggestively. "Now, watch." 

Rainer's Vaporeon began to look puzzled as a light mist rose around its  
body. "Vee? Vee!" The mist solidified into ice, while Misty's Vaporeon  
cracked out of its own cold prison. 

"How the hell did you do that?" Rainer said in shock. 

Misty's hand flashed as a blue poke-ball appeared on her palm. She  
recalled her Vaporeon. "And you call yourself a Water Master?" Then she  
launched herself forward in a spinning aerial manoeuvre, blue cloak  
flapping everywhere, and kicked Rainer in the face knocking him ten feet  
backward and on to the roof railing.  
  


  
  


Pyro had a black eye. "Argh!" he yelled as he lifted his arms to try  
another bolt of flame, but his head jerked as Bruno smashed him in the  
face yet again. 

"One, two, one two," Bruno said underneath his breath, then he spun  
around into a mid-level roundhouse kick, smashing Pyro backward like a  
soccer ball and flat on his back. "Ah, that felt good!" he sighed, as he  
pushed his sweat-soaked brown hair back on his head. 

Pyro coughed, turned over and spat out a tooth on the deck. 

"Come on, fight like a real man," Bruno said, flexing his chest muscles  
as he approached. "None of this sissy power stuff." 

Pyro flipped upright and snarled. "You muscle-bound moron. I'm going to  
burn you good!" His hands burst into flame and he lunged in a quick  
punch. 

Bruno yelled as Pyro managed to score across his arm, giving it a nasty  
burn. He counter-attacked with a grab and a sweep, knocking him to the  
floor again. "Ah, so you're not as easy as I thought," Bruno said,  
beating the flames off his arm. 

Pyro rolled away and threw a red poke-ball. "Flareon, go! Fire Blast!" 

"Darn," Bruno said, taking a step backward.  
  


  
  


Sparky already had his Jolteon out. The electric evolution of Eevee was  
snapping and hissing as Erika tried to beat it off with her staff. 

The Thunder Master brother was enjoying the show. "Heh, you can't keep  
that up forever," he gloated as he tried to tilt his body in the best  
possible angle for the wind to hit him just right so that his yellow  
cloak would flare out nicely. 

Erika retreated a couple of steps, waving her staff menacingly at the  
spiky-backed yellow pokemon. "Bad boy, bad!" Erika was scolding it. "Go  
bother someone else!" 

"Jolt!" The Jolteon began to spark, black eyes narrowing fiercely. 

Then she noticed that she was backing up almost up to Ash and Pikachu.  
They seemed to be bent over in pain. What was wrong with them? 

But the weirdest thing started to happen. Sparky's Jolteon suddenly froze  
up and started to emit a whimpering sound. 

"Jolteon?" Sparky called out in worry. "What's wrong?" He ran closer  
until he too doubled over in pain. He screamed. 

The green-haired guy that seemed to hold the biggest grudge on Ash  
abruptly shouted, "You fools, get away from there!" 

Ash groaned as AJ turned his attention away. "Got to ... got to..." He  
leaned over and grabbed the metal railing of the ship's roof. Slowly, he  
ripped a bar off with the sound of steel creaking. "There!" he shouted as  
he threw it like a spear at a sword that AJ was holding, which was  
blinking in front of them. The sword seemed to squeal a shrill sound  
as the railing smashed into it and knocked it away to clatter upon the  
deck. 

"Sandshrew!" AJ cried in horror. He kicked Ash away furiously and then  
turned on the coughing Sparky. "You idiot, look what you did!" 

"Me?" Sparky choked, standing up and slowly recovering from the intense  
pain. "What did I-"? 

AJ stamped his booted foot, and a wave of pressurised air travelled along  
the deck and knocked him over. "Now for Ash and his rat-" he snarled,  
spying the small black pikachu slowly standing up on to its hind legs and  
shaking its head. 

But Erika stepped forward and quickly dealt him two blows with her staff,  
once in the chest, then a spinning slash at his legs, tripping him over.  
"Oh no you don't!" she said in satisfaction as she dealt a final blow to  
the head knocking him out. 

Sparky lifted himself to his feet, eyes burning yellow. "I've had enough!  
Brothers, it's time!"  
  


  
  


Rainer's eyes abruptly shone blue. He stopped throwing Ice Beams and  
turned. "Yes, it's time." 

Misty blinked. "What are you talking about?" 

The frozen Vaporeon suddenly burst out of its coating of ice and leaped  
away towards the rear of the ship.  
  


  
  


All of a sudden, Pyro burst out laughing as his eyes flared red. "Now  
you're dead. It's time." 

The Flareon that was attacking Bruno blinked once and then loped away on  
all fours, red fur glowing bright with fire. Pyro followed, his cloak  
trailing flames on the deck of the ship. 

"Come back here and fight," Bruno called as he ran after them.  
  


  
  


The three brothers and their pokemon stood in the centre of the ship's  
roof. 

"I don't like the looks of this," Erika said as Bruno and Misty just  
arrived and stood next to her. 

Ash stepped backward and let Pikachu jump up on to his shoulder. "Get  
ready." 

"For what?" Misty asked curiously. 

Rainer yelled, "Vaporeon, merge!" 

Pyro yelled, "Flareon, merge!" 

Sparky yelled, "Jolteon, merge!" 

The three pokemon seemed to flash then slowly slide into each other as if  
they were as insubstantial as air. What formed in the centre quickly  
began to grow larger and larger until it was at least eight feet tall.  
Soon the merging was complete and what stood there was a huge dragon-like  
creature which stood on four spiny legs, but had three heads and three  
tails. Each head corresponded to each of the pokemon that had spawned it,  
the middle was a Flareon's head while the two side heads were a Jolteon  
and Vaporeon respectively. The three tails corresponded to the same  
pokemon also, but that was where the resemblance ended. The actual torso  
of the fearsome creature was a dragon's, complete with wings and coloured  
black as the night. All three heads roared simultaneously, a terrifying  
sound that seared the soul. Its razor-sharp claws scratched deep furrows  
on the ship's steel deck. 

Bruno blinked. "Holy crap." 

"What he said," Erika mumbled. She took one look at her staff, then  
another at the Eevee-dragon creature and hid it behind her back,  
blushing. 

Ash and Misty were silent, their cloaks rustling sinuously in the cold  
wind. Pikachu was still on Ash's shoulder. 

The hatch behind them opened and Lily stuck her head out. "What's all the  
racket up here, and why have we suddenly gained at least a ton in  
weight?" 

The dragon thing roared. 

Lily turned her head and her blue eyes widened as large as saucers.  
"Oh... Well, I'll leave it to you guys. Sayanara!" She slammed the hatch  
shut. 

The three Pokemon Master brothers laughed. "Sorry now aren't you, that  
you murdered our little brother?" 

Misty shook her head. "For the last time, none of us killed Mikey." 

"Liars," Pyro accused. "I'm going first. Triverion, Ultimate Fire!" He  
looked at Ash and pointed. "On him!" 

Ash pivoted sideways as the middle head focused its large red eyes on him  
menacingly and began to inhale with powerful suction. 

"Guys," Erika suddenly spoke up. "Has it just gone colder or is it my  
imagination?" 

"Now is not the time to think about the weather, Erika," Bruno said  
matter-of-factly. 

Ash looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "No, actually, she's  
right. This cold ... it doesn't feel natural." He looked behind the ship.  
"And those flock of gyarados that were following us have disappeared." 

"Ash, watch out!" Misty warned as the Triverion's middle head opened its  
fanged mouth and let out a solid bar of white flame from its throat. 

Ash spun around, letting his black cloak cover his form as the immensely  
hot, burning fire struck. Darkness seemed to flash as Misty, Erika and  
Bruno were blown back off their feet by a wave of intense heat. Black  
mist and smoke was flying everywhere making it hard to see. 

"That was almost too easy," Pyro said contemptuously with a flick of his  
red hair. "Now where's Brock?" Then as the black mist was cleared by the  
biting-cold wind, a dark form was seen kneeling on the deck, black cloak  
smoking. "What? You're harder to kill than last week's mayonnaise!"  
But suddenly, his teeth chattered and he began to hug himself around his  
red cloak as he realised something. "Hey, brothers, you feel that? It's  
starting to get freezing!" 

A sharper wind began to blow from the west and everyone looked in that  
direction. No longer was the horizon over the tossing black ocean  
visible, it was absolutely clogged up with white impenetrable fog. It  
seemed to be rapidly approaching over the ocean as if it were a tidal   
wave that was as wide as the eye could see. 

"Who cares about some storm?" Rainer shouted. "It's my turn! Triverion,  
get ready for Ultimate Ice." He pointed at Misty who was standing up from  
being knocked over. "On that bitch!" 

Sparky grabbed his arm. "No wait, I don't think that's a natural storm." 

Pyro jerked backward. "Shit. Do you think it's her? I think we're close  
enough that-" 

And then the wind grew even more fierce and a storm of hail and snow  
began to fall around them. Ice fell so hard, it felt like stones being  
beaten across their backs. A loud clattering sound began to pervade the  
air as the hail smashed against the ship's deck.  
  


  
  


Butch and Cassidy were watching the action as they stood next to Suzie  
atop the deck of the large Pokemon League Battleship. They had been  
observing the fight for quite some time as their ship followed at a  
discrete distance. 

"They're not going to kill Ashura are they?" Cassidy asked in a high  
voice. "That flame attack of their's actually looked like it could have  
killed him." 

Suzie shrugged uncaringly. "I doubt they'd be able to kill him. He is one  
of the Forbidden Pokemon Masters after all." She narrowed her one visible  
eye. "All I want is Brock." 

Butch shivered and tightened his grey over-cloak. "It's freezing! Maybe  
we should go in, it's starting to snow," he said, lifting his palm up. 

Cassidy cursed as a large piece of ice bounced off her blonde head. "It's  
not snowing you fool, it's hail!" 

And then there was the most horrible screeching sound like fingernails on  
a blackboard. Their ship jerkily came to a stop from underneath them  
sending Butch and Cassidy stumbling forward. 

Suzie, however, stayed secure on her two feet. She took a step forward  
and peered over the edge of the bow. "The water around our ship has been  
frozen," she said calmly. 

Cassidy saw that the smaller white ship they were following had stopped  
too. "They've been frozen also. What gives?" 

"Maybe that," Suzie indicated with a nod of her chin. 

They looked to the side and saw a rapid fog approaching. And at the  
centre of the fog, a lone figure. The fog seemed to be emanating from it  
as it approached them from the horizon. It seemed as if the figure was  
walking on water ... on the ocean itself.  
  


  
  


Ash watched as he knelt, his black cloak still smoking from the fire  
attack, as the figure in the fog came closer and closer. Slowly, details  
emerged. It was wearing a Master's hooded cloak, that much was obvious,  
and it was the colour of frozen ice, a pale whitish-blue. The freezing  
cold wind was blowing it across to the side, casting a slim curvaceous  
figure in relief. Long, milk-white legs were revealed with each flap of  
the cloak. A woman. 

Around her feet, the water of the ocean seemed to freeze as she came  
forward, and that was how she was able to 'walk' on water. And then her  
sliding gait was explained as he picked out that she was actually on ice  
skates, skating on the ice-path of her creation. 

Brightest green eyes flared within the shadows of her cowl. 

Lorelei. 

The first of the Elite Four. 

As she neared them more and more, the air began to grow even more  
unbearably cold and the fog began to cut out the already scant light. Ash  
reached behind to cover his head with the hood of his cloak and tightened  
it. Pikachu burrowed into his arms and stuck his head out the top,  
pointed ears twitching. 

Everyone else covered their heads and faces with their cowls too, except  
for Misty who seemed to be unaffected by the cold or the hail, which just  
seemed to dissolve before it hit her. She was silently staring down  
across at Lorelei, her eyes glowing an icy-blue as her long red hair  
seemed like a flame in the sudden darkness. 

As for the huge Triverion, it had shrunk down to crouch in a ball,  
whimpering as it tried to keep warm. 

Finally, when Lorelei was about thirty or so feet away from their ship,  
she hopped sideways and skidded on the pathway of ice she had created,  
and came to a stop, her skates creating icy-blue sparks. Her long cloak  
rustled lithely along her body, revealing enough bare skin underneath to  
show that she was almost naked underneath it. Her head remained covered  
by her hood, although her eyes were still glowing green deep within them  
- all that was visible of her facial features. 

"I sense warmth." Her voice was icy, as cold as the arctic wind. It was  
actually a pleasant voice, a singer's voice, except there was something  
about it which seemed to freeze the soul. "All warmth must be destroyed." 

The three Eevee brothers, Rainer, Pyro and Sparky took a step backward,  
obviously frightened. 

"What's your problem?" Erika whispered over to them. "Isn't she on your  
side?" 

"Yes and no," Pyro whispered back. "It was said that Lorelei lost her  
sanity a few years ago, and now no one really knows whose side she's on." 

"What?" Bruno looked absolutely shocked. 

Ash nodded slowly. "It's true. That's why she was kept largely apart from  
the other League Pokemon Masters and Trainers." 

"I-I didn't know," Bruno mumbled. 

Erika recalled her staff away with a flash of emerald light. "The  
question is, why is she here?" 

Sparky answered her. "We're near Cinnabar. She was in charge of the  
Cinnabar focal point for opening the gate. Master Garick had to use her  
since she is one of the most powerful Pokemon Masters in the world, after  
all." 

A groaning came from the floor. Everyone turned to look and watched as AJ  
regained consciousness and pushed himself to his feet. "I remember that  
bitch," AJ snorted angrily. "She was the one who made sure I didn't even  
qualify for Pokemon League the next year!" He grabbed his sword and then  
jumped off the side of the ship to attack her. 

Ash stepped forward to grab him, but missed. "AJ, you fool, you don't  
know what you're doing!" 

AJ landed lightly on the frozen island of ice surrounding the ship and  
hopped toward her, slipping a little, with his sword held horizontally by  
his side. "You're dead!" he shouted, his eye glowing fiercely. 

Lorelei waited for him to come, silent, as the cold wind blew her  
ice-blue cloak sinuously around her slim form. But when AJ swung his  
sword at her, she suddenly spun in a high spin-kick, cloak gliding like a  
ballerina's skirt, as she agilely blocked it with the blade of her left  
ice skate. As AJ stepped off-balance, his sword ricocheting off her  
foot, she spun again, this time striking with her right leg, the sharp  
blade of her ice-skate stabbing deeply into his chest with a splash of  
blood. AJ coughed once before Lorelei tossed him away with a smooth  
movement of her long leg to send him sliding off the ice and into the  
ocean. He sunk beneath the black turbulent waters without a trace. 

Her eyes were still glowing green as she turned back to look up at them.  
"Warmth is a disease that lets one feel. Soon all will be replaced by  
blissful cold." Her aura of white fog began spreading outward, toward  
the ship. 

Ash sensed movement by his side, but was too late to stop Misty from also  
jumping off the side of the ship. "Misty!" 

As she leaped down, red hair and blue cloak trailing behind her in the  
air, blue-white flashes sparked from her feet as blades of ice-skates  
formed underneath her black boots. She landed with a skidding of ice and  
began skating toward Lorelei. 

Tucking Pikachu within his cloak to keep warm, Ash moved to follow when  
suddenly hard thick arms grasped him from behind and caught him in a  
strong hold. He turned his head to find that it was Bruno holding him,  
his rust-coloured eyes shining fierce. "Bruno, what the hell?" 

All Bruno did was tighten his hold further, so that even Pikachu was  
trapped, caught within Ash's immobilised arms. The hard Fight Master  
closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ash."  
  


  
  


Misty slid to a stop, shards of ice flying away from her skates as  
she slowed down. In front of her, Lorelei was unmoving, two bright points  
of green light that were her eyes glowing over the shadows of her face.  
Both their cloaks seemed to rustle in synchronised movements, in timing  
with each gust of the frozen wind. 

She didn't quite know what she was doing. There was just something she  
felt deep within that pulled her to seek this confrontation. 

Abruptly, Lorelei threw off her hood and tossed her long wavy hair free  
to flap behind her in the wind. It was a dark-blue, a purple colour that  
almost matched the dark waters of the ocean. Over her deep green eyes,  
she still wore her oval spectacles, the same ones she had worn back in  
the days of the Pokemon League tournaments. 

"You are warm ... yet cold at the same time." Her voice was just louder  
than a whisper. "Do you seek the frozen oblivion?" Her hands by her sides  
began to pulse with icy-blue power, emitting a fog whiter than was  
natural. 

"Lorelei ..." Misty voiced. "Why?" 

She thought back to the past. Years ago, Lorelei, the mistress of icy  
pokemon had been her idol. She had looked up to her, like Ash had looked  
up to the other Elite Four. Once, she had even thought about following in  
her footsteps, a pure ice trainer - although water, her first love, had  
brought her back. Lorelei had been aloof, a cold personality, yet  
even so, deep down, Misty thought she was a caring person, someone who  
you could tell could feel deeply. This Lorelei was different, a Lorelei  
who embraced the cold and nothing else. 

Suddenly Lorelei blinked and the faintest tinge of red appeared on her  
pale-as-ice cheeks. "Y-You!" she shouted. "So you think you can escape  
death?" She lifted her arms skywards and the cold power she had gathered  
rocketed up into the sky. Clouds up above trembled and roared. 

Misty slipped backward at the freezing cold backlash, so cold that even  
she could feel it. 

The hail began to fall harder and the gusts of cold wind grew  
exponentially powerful - powerful enough to crack the ice they were  
standing on. It forced Misty to slide away despite her skates being  
locked against the ice. 

"Master Pokemon of Ice!" Lorelei shouted over the now screaming wind.  
"Show her the numbness that only ice can give!" 

It was as if a giant earthquake had hit underneath the ocean. The ice  
that they were standing upon, cracked apart even more. Misty gasped in  
horror as her sisters' ship behind her began to rise as something ...  
something huge began pushing it from underneath, from underneath the  
island of frozen ocean it was marooned in. 

In front of the ship a massive head broke out of the ice, the head of a  
giant lapras. It was as translucent as frozen spring water but with eyes  
that glowed a crimson red, the colour of the Forbidden. It rose up  
higher, revealing a long elegant neck, smooth as the ice it was made of. 

As it rose rapidly, she saw that the ship was actually on the huge  
lapras' back, held within the frozen spines of ice that adorned the  
saddle of its massive torso. Its icy body broke up out of the frozen  
island of ocean carrying the ship up to a height of at least twenty or  
thirty feet. 

Lorelei flung her arms down in an abrupt gesture. "BLIZZARD!" she  
screamed.  
  


  
  


"Let go of me!" Ash shouted as Bruno continued to hold him from behind in  
a double arm-lock. 

But Bruno was silent, unspeaking. 

Ash's eyes blazed golden, lighting up the darkness created by the storm.  
"Can't you see? Misty ... ARGH!" He savagely broke out of Bruno's hold  
with a powerful surge of strength and was about to leap from the ship,  
when the deck shook and he lost balance, stumbling over to his hands and  
knees. Pikachu fell out of his arm to land in front of him on all fours.  
Everyone else fell down too in the wake of the horribly shaking floor. 

"We're ... we're rising!" Erika gasped as she rolled over to look out  
the starboard-side. 

"Shit!" Sparky cursed. 

Everyone clung face-down on the deck as the ship rose higher and higher  
until it stopped rising and bobbed once. Hail slashed across their backs  
as the storm of ice above them grew to abnormal proportions. 

At the front of the ship, the back of a huge head rose up high. It was  
glimmering and transparent as if it were made of ice. Ash felt a chill go  
down his spine that was not the cold as he gazed upon it. 

"It's-it's the Master Pokemon of Ice!" It was Rainer's voice. "That  
lapras!" 

"But I thought it was dead!" Pyro said, shocked. 

It can't be! Ash thought. *She* was the Master Pokemon of Ice? "Nessie!"  
he yelled up to it. "Is that you?" 

Immediately, the lapras' head began to turn around. Its brightly glowing  
red eyes widened when they alighted upon him. A light female voice boomed  
telepathically through the air, easily heard despite the screaming wind.  
"MASTER ASH?" 

"Nessie? H-How?" 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu shouted up to it. 

It closed its crimson eyes. "I'M SORRY." 

And then it seemed like the world had turned white.  
  


  
  


The unnatural blizzard raged on, completely engulfing the ship in its icy  
embrace. Even the League Battleship had gotten caught and was tossed  
around the ocean like a leaf in a hurricane. 

But the storm was not created for the sole purpose of death, but for a  
different reason ... a reason of vengeance.  
  


  
  


It was a day and a half since the storm. 

Laselle awoke with a start. It was dark and she could hardly see as her  
eyes blinked to wakefulness. She could hear several other people stirring  
around her as well. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was  
eating dinner ... a tickling sensation on her bottom startled her out of  
her thoughts and she heard a muffled sound come out from under her. 

"Laselle, will you get off me?" The voice slowly gained meaning as her  
brain sorted itself out. 

She rolled over to find that she had been sitting on Giselle's head.  
"Gee, sis, I never knew you were so kinky," she said, still a bit dazed. 

Giselle snorted in disgust. 

Laselle ignored her and looked around as her eyes adjusted to the  
dimness. So eating dinner really was the last thing she had done. They  
were all in the dining room of the ship... which was now in absolute  
shambles. The floor seemed to be tilted diagonally, and all the tables  
and chairs had succumbed to gravity and collected at the bottom, against  
the wall and the floor. Most of the people had slid to the bottom as  
well, and that was why she had been sitting on Giselle's head. There was  
a lot of groaning as people tried to pick themselves out of the junk and  
from everyone else. 

Once she was freed, Giselle went to stand up but then slipped and fell  
over forward with an indignant shriek. For a moment she just lay there,  
her hair over her face before she pushed herself up to her elbows and  
seemed to make a half-crying, half-laughing sound, her face still covered  
with her hair. 

Then Laselle remembered more of what happened. "That was some storm," she  
offered, not bothering to try to stand up on the tilted floor. She tried  
to learn from her sister's mistakes. 

Someone came stumbling up to her and she turned her head. It was Junior,  
looking a bit roughened up with his jeans and black shirt torn as well as  
his black hair in disarray. His cap must have fallen off in the scuffle  
as he had been wearing it before but not now. 

"You okay?" he asked, scratching at his messed up hair. 

"I think so." A thought came to her. "Oh no! Ash was outside, wasn't he?  
Is he, is he-" 

Giselle blew the hair off her face. "Why Laselle dear, do I detect a hint  
of a crush?" 

She felt her face redden. "None of your business!" 

At that moment, the door at the far end of the room crashed open and  
three women in sailor's jackets and skirts stumbled in on the uneven  
floor. Misty's sisters. 

"Like, is everyone alright?" the tallest blonde one said. Daisy, her name  
was. 

They took inventory of the people there. Everyone seemed to be okay,  
except for Joe, Giselle's childhood fanboy, who had sprained his ankle.  
Although Laselle couldn't really care less. She thought he was pathetic. 

"So what happened? Where are we?" Captain Jenny asked. 

Someone looked out the porthole, Laselle thought it was Joy, the younger  
medic of Erika's group. "Mistress, I see white sands outside; a beach  
of some kind." Her blue eyes were confused. "I've never seen sand this  
white before!" 

Captain Jenny looked closely at her. "Hey, look Joylene, one of your  
relatives!" 

Nurse Joy, or Joylene, from the Castle Town smiled. "You're right. She's  
one of my sister-in-laws." 

"You know, I still don't understand how all of you Joys can be   
identical without being directly related," Captain Jenny wondered out   
loud. 

"Humph!" Joylene said, "And your identical cousins are supposed to make  
sense too?" 

"Actually, I don't understand that either," Captain Jenny said,  
shrugging. 

Daisy interjected before the two could prolong their argument. "White  
sands? Like I think we've washed ashore on some kind of weirdo island!" 

"What about Ash?" Laselle tried. 

The shortest of Misty's sisters, Lily with shortish pink hair answered  
her. "Duplica's checking the deck right now, but so far, like everyone  
who was up there before the storm hit is missing." 

Ania, Colletra and Triana - three Grass Trainers - looked concerned.   
Laselle was glad to see them again when they met up back at South   
Lavender as they had been her friends back in Mistress Erika's squad.   
They looked none-the-worse-for-wear, Ania with her shortish black   
hair with bangs over her right eye, Colletra with her blonde ponytail   
hairstyle and Triana, who could've passed for Junior's sister with her   
dark hair and similar fashion sense; although their green dress   
uniforms looked a bit mussed up. "Even Mistress Erika?" they inquired. 

"Apparently," Violet, the second sister, said. 

"Master Bruno?" a couple of men in maroon muscle shirts asked. Laselle  
didn't know their names, she had always tried to avoid Master Bruno's  
group. 

"Same. And our sister Misty too." 

Duplica then stumbled in through the door, shards of ice stuck all over  
her jacket and black dress. Her breath was foggy coming from bluish lips.  
"Brrrr ... it's cold out! But no luck. I couldn't find any sign of them  
at all, except for a few melted patches and scratches on the deck." 

"No total way!" Lily said in shock. "Our poor ship!" 

"That isn't the half of it. Anyway, I think everyone better come up and  
take a look at where we've been shipwrecked." 

Ten minutes later, everyone was standing on the upper-deck of the ship  
looking in amazement at the land they had washed ashore on. It was indeed  
a white beach. Sand of pure white, that seemed to radiate a light of its  
own. A chill fog swept over them as they tried to keep their footing on  
the slanted, frosted deck. Past the beach were what looked like icy  
cliffs, but more could not be seen because of the overhanging white fog.  
Behind them, the dark ocean swept gently across the back of the ship,  
rocking it a few inches to and fro as it lay lightly buried to the hull  
on the sand. 

Laselle hugged her arms over her jumper and shivered. "You're right,  
Duplica, it is cold!" 

Duplica walked over to the star-board rail and leapt over it with one  
smooth movement. There was a strange crunching sound as she landed on the  
white sands of the beach below. She crouched down and felt the sand.  
"This is what I was talking about. All this sand ... it's made of ice!" 

Laselle squinted. No wonder why it was so sparkly! 

Misty's sisters however were concentrating on something else. "Well,  
would you like a look at this?" Daisy complained as she examined  
something on the stern. "Hydro-turbine number two, is like totally out of  
wack! We'll never be able to continue sailing if we don't get this  
fixed." 

"Looks like we'll have to get busy," Violet said with a shrug. 

"Great," Lily groaned, as she rolled up the sleeves of her sailor jacket. 

Duplica looked up at them from the beach and hugged herself to keep warm.  
"We can't leave yet anyway until we find the others. I think we'll find  
them somewhere here ... say, what is this place anyhow? Do you girls  
know?" 

Daisy held off her inspection of the turbine. "Let me just check our  
coordinates." She took out a small compass-device thing from her jacket  
pocket and fiddled with it. "This doesn't make sense. According to this,  
we're somewhere in the vicinity of Cinnabar Island." She pointedly   
looked around. "Does this look like Cinnabar Island to you people?" 

"It sure doesn't feel like it," Duplica said, her teeth chattering. "More  
like Icybar Island. But I guess we better form a search-party. While  
you're fixing the ship, we can go look for Ash and the others." 

"I'm coming!" Laselle immediately put in. 

"Me too," Junior said. 

Colletra, unhooked her whip from her green jacket. "We're coming, me,  
Ania and Triana. Mistress Erika may need our help." 

"You may need a doctor," Giselle said arrogantly. "I'll lend you my  
services." 

"Great," Laselle said sarcastically, but her sister just lifted a slim  
eyebrow. 

"What about me?" Joe asked as he limped out of the hatch and looked over  
the deck railing. 

"No, your ankle might slow us down," Duplica called up from below. 

Joe glared down at her from behind his glasses. 

Bruno's two trainers looked concerned. "We'd like to come too, but that  
would leave the ship too undefended. We'll have to stay behind." 

"Speak for yourself," a deep voice rumbled. Laselle turned in surprise to  
see a heavy-set, brown-bearded man in a maroon over-coat step out of the  
hatch. Although he looked middle-aged, the muscular build of his body  
underneath his clothes belied that. "Master Bruno would have my hide if I  
let young Junior go off by himself and with nought but a bevy of  
mothering women to accompany him!" 

"Hikaru!" Junior whined. "I'm not a baby anymore!" 

Laselle smirked. "Could've fooled me." 

Junior looked at her with his sea-green eyes and tapped the end of his  
cap flippantly. "On second thought, you better come along then. Little  
girls need protecting after all." 

Giselle looked at her and burst out laughing. "He got you good with that  
one, little sister," she said in between gasps of hilarity. 

Laselle folded her arms and fumed. 

"We'll stay behind with the others," Captain Jenny said, speaking for  
Joylene and the younger Nurse Joy. 

"I guess that settles that then," Duplica said. She looked far over at  
the flat icy pathway leading away from the beach and frowned. "Although,  
how we're going to be able to walk on that is anyone's guess. Of course,  
I can just whip something up for myself, but I don't know about the rest  
of yas." 

Lily tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Um, we may have something for you  
guys, but its like totally far out. Any of you know how to skate?"  
  


  
  


Drip. Drop. Melted water fell from the icy roof of the small cave in slow  
uneven splashes. Inside, light from an eerie black fire reflected around  
the shiny frozen walls. There was no smoke given off by the unnatural  
flames as it hissed and crackled. Unnatural, but it was a source of  
warmth. 

Unwavering, Ash held the image in his mind so that the flame might live.  
There was no fuel for the fire, the fire burning on a floor of ice, but  
for his thoughts. 

A sigh and the woman lying across the other side of the fire stirred.  
Grass-green eyes slowly blinked to wakefulness. Letting out a little  
gasp, she sat up, clutching black covers to her chin. She shivered as she  
combed the shoulder-length black hair away from her face with her  
fingers, blue highlights shining in the light of the dark fire. 

"A-Ash? What happened?" Erika asked sleepily. She noticed Pikachu was  
there also, sitting beside her and warming his jagged tail on the fire. 

Ash was hugging himself around his arms as he sat cross-legged, only  
wearing his cut-off black shirt and long-pants. He shrugged as he turned  
his head and picked at a small white bandage wrapped around his upper  
right arm. "During the storm, we must have got thrown off the ship. We  
washed ashore. Besides Pikachu, you were the only one I could see on that  
part of the beach. I dragged you here to this cave. You were out of it  
for quite some time." 

"What? Where's everyone else? Misty?" 

He spread his palms over the fire again. "I don't know. But, like us,  
they must be somewhere on this island." 

"Island?" 

"Yeah. Cinnabar Island." 

Erika widened her eyes. "Cinnabar Island?" she said loudly, causing her  
voice to echo around the frozen walls of the cave. "Then why the heck is  
it so cold? Wasn't Cinnabar a tropical island? Years ago, it was even a  
tourist attraction. Hot springs?" 

He shrugged one shoulder. "I guess Lorelei has been doing some  
redecorating." 

She focused her green eyes on him directly. "And another thing ... that  
lapras. You almost seemed to know it." Her eyes widened. "No, it couldn't  
be ..." 

He nodded. "Yeah, that was my Lapras ... in the past." Feeling  
distinctly uncomfortable, he decided to change the subject. "But the  
biggest surprise was when Bruno tried to stop me..." 

Erika looked thoughtful. "How much do you know about Bruno exactly?" 

"Not much. Only that he's as hard a man as they come. The Master of  
Fighting and Strength... all I know is that he's changed a lot since when  
I met him as a kid." 

"You met him as a kid?" She looked interested. 

"Yeah." He gave a short laugh as he shook his head, remembering. "We were  
trying to pry out the secret of being a Pokemon Master out of him..."  
Shrugging ironically, he continued. "Of course, no one was a *real*  
Pokemon Master back then, knowing what we do now. But getting back to the  
point, he wasn't near as ruthless as he is currently. In the dark Pokemon  
Wars, I wouldn't be lying if I said his methods were cruel." 

"In your opinion, were Lorelei and Bruno good ... friends?" 

"Well, yeah I guess. Bruno was closest to the other Elite Four, more than  
he was to anyone else. Although I must admit it was kind of hard to make  
it out between those two. They fought more than talked it seemed," he  
said in a baffled expression. 

"Interesting," Erika said with the beginnings of a smile. She gave an  
abrupt shiver and frowned. She began to slide closer to the fire when her  
covers began to slide down. She looked down and gasped as she realised  
that she was naked underneath them. With the speed of a burning rapidash,  
she lifted them up to her chin again. She glared at Ash, her green eyes  
beginning to glow with an inner light. "Um, why am I naked underneath  
these covers?" she asked in a deceptively calm voice. 

Ash looked at her and his face began to feel flushed. "Look, your clothes  
and cloak were soaked alright? I had to take them off or you could've  
caught hypothermia from that freezing ocean." 

"Pika pika!" Pikachu agreed. 

"And trust me, I didn't even look!" he added. 

Erika was still furious. "How could you have not looked?" 

"You mean, you wanted me to?" Ash asked, confused. 

"I, no, I mean ... argh!" Erika sighed as she arranged her thoughts in  
order. "I mean, how could you have taken my clothes off if you didn't  
look? My dress is complicated enough even to put on." 

"I have experience taking off women's dresses," Ash said defensively. 

"I'll bet you do," Erika huffed. 

"And I used my inner-sense alright?" 

"INNER SENSE?" she said in horror. "That's even worse!" 

"I, uh, just forget about it!" Ash said in a defeated tone. 

Erika looked around. "So where's my things?" Her voice was still  
decidedly testy. 

Ash patted the bundle by his side. "Here they are. I dried them out for  
you with the fire." 

She looked closer at it. "Hey, that's not a natural fire. Won't that  
attract those Forbidden Pokemon things?" 

He tilted his head to the side curiously. "Don't you feel it? There's so  
many elemental powers active on this island, that no one's bound to be  
able to pick up any individual usage of elements. It's all this ice ...  
here look, see how that ice underneath my fire isn't even melting? If  
that was natural, we'd be swimming right now." 

"Uh ... right," Erika said. She looked at him shiver again. "Where's your  
cloak? Why don't you wear it if you're feeling cold?" 

He pointed to the covers she was using. "You're using it." 

She jerked, almost dropping the covers - which was really his cloak - but  
then snatched them up again when she realised that if she dropped them,  
she'd be naked. "Uh ... thanks, I think." Her face turned red. "Now will  
you please pass my things and look in the other direction." 

"What for?" 

"So I can get dressed!" 

"Oh." He threw over her things and spun himself around to face the wall. 

"You too, Pikachu," she said firmly. 

"Cha." He heard Pikachu turn around too, although sounding disappointed. 

Then he heard her shuffle around and curse as she tried to squeeze into  
her underclothes and dress while sitting down. "You know, you don't sound  
particularly worried that we've all been split up and Misty's missing,"  
she said testingly. 

"Nah, I know she's fine," Ash said. "I feel it in here." He thumped his  
chest. "But who cares about her anyway." 

"Yeah." Her voice grew frosty as if she just remembered something that  
made her incredibly angry. "You can turn around now." 

Ash did so and warmed his hands over the fire again. She was now dressed  
in her green short-sleeved dress and mini-skirt, her long legs crossed  
together in front of her. 

"Here." She threw Ash's black cloak at him and began to shrug her own  
green one on. "Where's my boots?" 

"Over there." He pointed over to the far corner, where her thigh-high  
black boots were leaning against the icy wall of the cave. 

"Okay. We'd better get going soon if we want to find everyone and get off  
this freezing island." She began to stand up. 

"Erika, watch out, it's-" 

She shrieked as she suddenly slipped and fell with a loud thump on her  
bottom on the icy floor. "Owwwwwww," she said slowly as she just sat  
there, legs splayed out in front of her with a pained expression on her  
face. 

"-Slippery," Ash finished unnecessarily. He shrugged his black cloak on,  
and slowly stood up. "To get anywhere, we'll have to do this-" His boots  
began to shimmer with dark shadows and he rose up a couple of inches as  
black skates formed underneath the soles. He slid his feet back and forth  
over the ice. "See? Lorelei had the right idea with skates." 

Erika looked horrified. "But I can't skate," she complained as she began  
to crawl over to her boots. 

Ash scratched the back of his head. "Um ... well, you'll learn soon, I  
bet." 

When they were ready to leave the ice cave, Ash was expertly balanced  
atop the ice, while Erika kind of wobbled funny and held on to the wall  
with one hand as she tried to keep steady on her just-formed hard-wooden  
skates on the soles of her boots. 

"Wooden skates?" Ash asked, looking doubtfully down at them. 

"Well, that's all I can make, thank you very much," Erika huffed.  
"Besides, their hard and sharp enough. Want me to test the sharpness on  
you?" 

"Um." He shook his head. "Don't worry, I'll take your word for it." 

Panicking, she suddenly felt around her hair. "Where is my favourite   
hair band?" she asked desperately. 

"Pikachu," Ash said, turning his head to look at his pokemon sitting on  
his left shoulder. 

Pikachu was swinging it around his small arm, playing with the red band.  
"Chu!" He snapped his paw reluctantly and gave it back to Erika.  
  


  
  


Like cymbals being crashed together over and over, the ebony waves of the  
ocean splashed upon the icy beach. But however cold the ocean breeze was,  
it was actually warmer than what air was currently there. Overhead, the  
sky was as grey as rain-clouds, pulsing, but thankfully there was no hail  
or snow falling despite the low temperature. Faint light that emanated  
from the ice all around them seemed to make the whole island glow; making  
it seem bright enough that there could have been a sun up there, when in  
fact there was none. 

Sands of ice crunched underneath the black blades of Ash's skates as he  
stepped along the frozen white beach looking for other survivors. It  
seemed to stretch out all along the perimeter of the island; they had  
already been walking so far and there was no end to be seen. 

Behind him, Erika walked along semi-confidently. "Hey, this is actually  
pretty easy." Slight puffs of fog escaped from her mouth at each breath. 

"This isn't skating, Erika, just walking with skates," he said with a wry  
grin, puffs of fog also emitting from his mouth as he talked. 

"Oh, shut up." She stopped and looked up towards the mainland. "Let's go  
to the city. I'm tired and cold, and there's obviously not much of   
anything happening here." She brushed her short dark hair away from her   
eyes and sighed. 

He grunted. "That's assuming there's even a city left." He turned around.  
"But I guess you're right. That's probably what everyone else did when  
they got washed up." He pointedly looked at the volcano of ice looming up  
on the horizon, in the centre of the island. Clouds had begun gathering  
at the top. "I guess it was obvious that if anything's going to happen,  
it's going to happen there." 

"I don't understand why we just can't fly around looking for them."  
Erika shrugged. "I've got a scyther that can carry me and I'm sure you've  
got some sort of technique for doing it..." 

"Well, they may not sense us, but up there, they would certainly see us,"  
Ash explained. "You wouldn't want some Forbidden Pidgeottos or something  
like that tearing us apart would you?" 

"Point taken." 

They began trudging up the sloped pathway leading to the centre of the  
island. The tops of ice-white trees could just be seen beginning at the  
top of the slope underneath the dense white fog - a forest of some kind.  
Although it started to get harder as the sands of ice gave way to flatter  
ground, and hence they actually had to start skating. 

Erika began to slip off-balance. "Ah, I-I think I'm going to-" 

Ash grabbed her hand, and began pulling her up the slope. "Careful." 

"Pika," Pikachu added from atop his shoulder. 

Erika glared down at his hand holding hers. "Do you mind?" 

He continued thrusting powerfully up the path with pushes on his skates  
and pulled her along. "Well, actually, you are pretty heavy," he said  
absent-mindedly. "Hey, ow! Can you hold it with that grip?" 

"Sorry," Erika said in an unrepentant voice. 

At the top of the slope, Erika let go of Ash's hand and skated ineptly   
over to one of the tall crystalline trunks. She felt the freezing bark   
and quickly removed her hand. "This-This is terrible," she said with a   
worrying look. 

"What is?" 

"Chu?" 

She began inspecting all the other trees. "These trees ... are not  
covered with ice, but they actually *are* ice. Like, that's what they're  
made of." 

Ash followed her gaze. "I guess Lorelei *has* been doing some  
redecorating ... I'm almost afraid to see what she's done with the city." 

"Duh, like it'll be some big surprise," Erika said, sweeping her hand  
over the white wilderness. "Brrr ... it almost makes me want to wish for  
some fire pokemon. Almost, but not quite." 

He was still looking at the trees. Like perfectly carved ice sculptures  
they were; they held a strange beauty. A cold beauty. "Let's get going.  
The sooner we find the others, the sooner we can find something to eat."  
They hadn't eaten anything for over a day at least and his stomach was  
grumbling. If only he had his backpack with him - it did have a few  
emergency supplies - but unfortunately he had left it back in his room on  
the ship. 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu brightened at the sound of food. 

Erika's smiled. "Hey, maybe you aren't as dumb as Misty says you are." 

He looked at her impassively. "Don't say the 'M' word."  
  


  
  


A light breeze had replaced the stronger wind from before, but it was  
still overly cold due to the sheer amount of ice around them. It was a  
virtual city of ice ... every single house, building and structure had  
been completely frozen, and not just covered with it - but actually  
turned into actual ice like the frozen forest they had passed through on  
their way to the city. Even the street-signs, mailboxes, flowers and  
whatever vegetation had been transmorphed into ice. 

Eerie. 

It felt like they were the only ones who were alive on the whole island. 

Erika had gotten a little better as she skated by Ash's left side on the  
street, although she still tended to stumble a little every dozen or so  
yards. "See? It was obvious wasn't it?" she said, referring to the frozen  
city. Then she shrieked as she spotted something by a frozen bread store  
next to the road. "There's someone over there!" 

Strange, he hadn't sensed anyone at all. But there actually was a  
human-shaped figure leaning against an entrance to an alley. "Stay here."  
He skated over to the figure, black cloak trailing behind him in the  
light zephyr of the arctic breeze and blinked. "It's not a person - just  
an ice sculpture or something." It looked extremely life-like; a soldier  
of ice. Slight light from over-head shined through its translucent body  
giving it a luminous look. 

Erika, right behind him as she hadn't followed his order, leaned in  
closer. "Ice sculpture?" Her pert nose twitched. "Ugh! No way! That *is*  
a person! Well, used to be one anyway." 

Ash bit his lower lip. "I think you're right." 

"Pika," Pikachu said on his shoulder looking shocked. 

"But ... look at the uniform," Erika said. "It's a Pokemon League  
soldier. Why would they do this to their own men?" 

"You saw how Lorelei was," Ash said flatly. 

"Hmmm ... yet another point taken." 

He looked around the white street and buildings, observing more carefully  
this time. Noticing more 'ice sculptures' like this one, he frowned.  
"Seems like everyone is frozen. Looks like Lorelei saying that all warmth  
must be destroyed was actually a literal threat - or a promise." 

"She's that powerful?" Erika marvelled. 

"Well, obviously the focal point holders must gain some increased  
strength from the gate-opening. Otherwise, Lorelei probably could have  
done this a whole lot sooner." 

At that point, the frozen soldier they had been looking at abruptly  
tumbled over and shattered against the icy pathway it was standing on. It  
broke apart into three main chunks of ice while countless more smaller  
pieces clattered everywhere. The sudden loud noise echoed around the  
frozen walls creating a haunting effect. 

"Ah uh! I didn't touch it, it wasn't me," Erika said, throwing her hands   
up. 

"It doesn't matter anyway, he was already dead." He kneeled and examined  
the broken pieces of the statue. "Yeah, no bits of red. No blood. Just  
ice." 

Erika was looking through the ice window of the store. "So I suppose if  
we thawed out that bread, it'd just be water." She sighed, when suddenly  
she frowned and began looking at the window more closely. 

"What's the matter?" 

"My hair, it's a mess," she said as she looked at her reflection in the  
window and combed her shoulder-length blue-black hair with her fingers.  
"And I lost my make-up bag too. And my perfumes." 

"You're weird," Ash said with a shake of his head. "Besides, if its those  
stinky perfumes, you're better off without them." 

Erika's eyes in the reflection of the window turned into little green  
slits. "Yes, I forgot how much you appreciate my perfumes. Makes me  
wonder what a girl can see in you. Despite outward appearances that is." 

Ash put his hands behind his head and gave her an infuriating grin. "As  
long as you don't have that darned red X stamp to smack my face with  
anymore, I'm safe." 

Erika fumbled around inside her green cloak. "Thanks for reminding me I  
still have it," she said with an evil smile. 

But just then, the skin on the back of his neck itched and he turned  
around, alert. He sensed something. Or somethings. Although he couldn't  
tell from what direction from all the elemental ice around them which was  
screwing his senses up. "Hmmm, much as I enjoy getting stamped in the  
face, Erika, I think we better postpone that and get the hell out of  
here. Something not all together friendly is coming this way." 

"What?" She gained a serious expression and turned, almost slipping  
on her skates. "Where?" 

"I don't know." They were coming even closer now. "Let's just go!" He  
skated behind her and began to push her quickly along the frozen  
footpath, his hands on the shoulders of her green cloak. 

"Not so fast!" Erika shrieked at the speed he was pushing her. 

"Sorry, no can do!" 

But as they began to pass an alleyway between two buildings of white ice,  
Pikachu shouted, "Pika!" and it was chaos as something collided into  
Ash's side. He let go of Erika and she went flying off down the street  
screaming. But that was the least of his worries as he collapsed in a   
slipping-sliding heap on his back with Pikachu attaching himself to his   
face so he couldn't see, while something or someone else had fallen on   
top of him in a tangle of clothing and hair. 

"Ash?" a woman's voice said from on top of him as they slid away rapidly. 

"Misty?" Ash called out. He was still blinded by Pikachu's chest on his  
face but he knew that voice. As he lifted Pikachu away from his face,  
bright blue eyes dominated his view, at least until long red hair  
filtered into his vision and flew into his mouth. "Mrpht!" he shouted. 

Misty lifted her head away from on top of him as they continued to slide  
away backward on Ash's back. "Sorry! At the count of three, let's jump up  
and get out of here!" she said in a high voice. 

"Why?" Ash called out when his mouth was free of Misty-hair. He looked  
behind them, or in front of them as they were sliding away backward. Then  
he saw. Uncountable four-legged forms of what looked like growlithes made  
of black ice were snapping and hissing as they poured out from  
the alleyway they had just passed and the one Misty had come from. He  
couldn't quite see clearly with Misty and Pikachu on top of him, but they  
looked all sharp teeth, claws, red eyes and dark frozen spines. "Ask a  
stupid question," he answered himself sardonically. "Okay, one, two,   
three - JUMP!" 

In perfect timing, they disengaged themselves from each other as they  
hand-flipped on to their skates with a flap of black and blue cloaks.   
They began to skate away furiously side by side. Pikachu landed on his   
left shoulder and clutched tightly as they gained speed, black jagged   
tail streaming behind. 

Ill-sounding shrieks and barks followed them as the dark ice creatures  
began to give chase. 

"Who was that you were pushing?" Misty suddenly asked with a sideways  
glance. 

"Pushing? It was Erika ... Erika, oh shit!" Just ahead, just on the rise  
of a hill where the street of ice lead, he could see a figure in a green  
cloak sliding away rapidly with its hands flapping around in windmills at  
the sides. He pushed harder in a burst of frenzied skating to catch her. 

"She's going to go down the hill!" Misty said from behind as she also  
sped up. "How could you have pushed her like that?" 

"Me? It was you who smashed into me!" 

"She can't skate! You shouldn't have pushed her in the first place." 

"She can't skate so I had to push her in the first place!" 

"Um, are you guys going to save me or what?" Erika interrupted in a panic  
from right in front of them as she just reached the pinnacle of the hill. 

Ash lunged forward. "Don't worry, I've ..." His hand just managed to grab  
on to the back of her green cloak. "Got you!" he finished triumphantly. 

Unfortunately the green cloak slid off her shoulders, spinning her  
around to skate backward in the process. She glared at him as she hugged  
her now naked arms, clad in only a short-sleeved green dress, and started  
the long deep frightening descent down the icy street-hill. 

"Or not," he mumbled. 

"I'm going to get you for this, Ash!" Erika said surprisingly calm. Her  
short black hair was flying forward in front of her face as she  
accelerated out of control down the hill in reverse. Tall ice-white  
buildings loomed up at the sides of the street, just waiting for her to  
smash and rebound off them like a sorry pinball.  
  


  
  


A group of eight people were skating rapidly along the narrow iced-up   
road through the country leading to the main part of the city. Each of   
them were scanning the frozen houses and foliage on the way there   
through the outskirts for any sign of life as they sped and weaved along. 

But of course there was none. Other than the sounds of the wind rushing   
by them and the sounds of their skates sliding on the ice, there was   
only the sound of their breathing to accompany them. 

Duplica was in the lead, her long blue hair streaming behind her in the  
biting wind along with folds of her violet cloak. "You know, this is  
kinda fun," she suddenly exclaimed. "This is just like an oversized  
skating rink!" 

Laselle, who was directly behind her, thought so too. "But don't you  
think it's a bit weird?" she asked. "And what happened to all the people?  
This is a League city after all." 

Junior's voice came from the back. "Maybe they all moved to Indigo  
Plateau, the Pokemon League's Capital. I reckon it's too cold to live  
here for very long, and what food could they live on?" 

"The boy's got a point," one of the Grass Trainers, Colletra agreed. "But  
the question is, why the city's like this in the first place. Correct me  
if I'm wrong, but Cinnabar's a Southern Island, right? The weather is  
just a tad on the cold side if you ask me." 

"Dangerous too," Duplica said suddenly in a more serious tone. "The  
element of ice is everywhere. It's interfering with the balance. Although  
the good news is that I think we can use special attacks if we want -  
there's no way we can be noticed when there's already so much activity  
going on." 

Giselle seemed to be fiddling with a small handheld device. "That's  
right, this detector shows so much energies that the needle is off the  
scale." 

"But what of the bad news?" Ania said as she skated up the back  
along with Triana. "Something has got to be producing this 'activity' and  
my guess is it was the same one who threw that blizzard at our ship." 

"Let's just hope that we can find Ash and the others and get the ship  
fixed up quick before anything else happens then," Duplica said. 

Junior suddenly broke formation and skated off to the side. "Look at  
this, guys! Someone's made a lot of those snow angel things. Pretty  
realistic don't you think?" 

The rest of them slowed down too and they all stopped with a sideways  
screech on the icy road to examine what Junior had found. In front of one  
of the abandoned farm-houses, on the front yard among frozen bushes stood  
several ice statues of people. Laselle got a bad feeling as she looked at  
one of a beautiful little girl. She was in a running pose and the bumps  
on her cheeks looked like icy tears. 

Laselle was startled as Hikaru suddenly skated over to it. He had a  
solemn expression on his bearded face. "This is much too realistic." He  
turned to look further down the street. She followed his gaze and was  
shocked to see much more of the ice statues, all either standing or  
laying on the yards in front of houses and some even on the street. "I  
fear we now know what happened to all the people of Cinnabar." 

Collatra looked disgusted as she studied another one of the statues, this   
one a man. She was tugging on the end of her short blonde ponytail   
angrily. "But this does not make sense! This was a League controlled  
city. They have murdered their own people!" 

Duplica frowned as she studied the same statue. "I'm going to test  
something." Abruptly her form blurred and shrunk until only a small cute  
red fox remained with multiple tails. 

"Oh, a Vulpix!" Triana squealed as she skated closer, arms outstretched. 

"Vul, hands off!" Duplica-Vulpix growled. 

Triana stopped disappointedly. "Awww, Mistress Duplica, you're no fun,"  
she said, as she brushed her black hair underneath her green baseball cap  
with her fingers. 

Laselle raised a brow at her. She still couldn't believe how immature  
Triana acted especially since the woman was four years older than her.  
"You mean you still have that unhealthy obsession with Vulpi, Triana? And  
you, a Grass Trainer. You should be ashamed of yourself," she said with a  
slight smile. 

Triana lifted her chin. "Well, I did want to become a Fire Trainer,  
remember, but we had no Fire Masters in the Rebellion to teach me," she  
said defensively. "Besides, you're supposed to be a Grass Trainer too,  
and now you have a *bug* pokemon," she said, pointing to Laselle's  
backpack. 

Laselle reached back to her pack protectively. "Caterpie's not just any  
bug pokemon, he's special." 

A snort of laughter interrupted her and Laselle frowned as Giselle skated  
over to join them. 

"You mean, you have a Caterpie now, little sis?" Giselle said, folding  
her arms over her ample chest encased within the doctor's coat she was  
wearing. "You've sure moved up in the world." 

"Care to have a match then, big sister?" Laselle challenged, looking up  
at her defiantly. 

"Maybe later," Giselle said dismissively. 

Meanwhile, Duplica-Vulpix had turned back to the statue. She began to  
breathe a small amount of flame at its ankle. Immediately, the ice began  
to melt. 

Giselle crouched down next to her. "It's just ice all the way through. So  
they haven't been conventionally frozen, but completely changed." 

Laselle was about to move closer to take a better look, when suddenly the  
ice beneath her skates began to vibrate and crack. Desperately, she  
shifted her skates back and forth to keep her balance as a soft rumbling  
sound began to be heard simultaneous with the moving of the earth.  
"Wha-What's going on?" she said alarmed. 

"Vul, below us!" Duplica-Vulpix suddenly shouted, but it was too late.  
Exploding forth from underneath them, a bluish figure burst from the ice,  
completely shattering the frozen man they were studying into a thousand  
pieces. It wrenched Giselle from the ground and held her in a painful  
arm-lock from behind. Giselle grunted in pain. 

"Don't anybody move," the figure said. 

The shattered ice was floating around in the air like drifting snowflakes  
making it hard for Laselle to see. When it finally settled down, she saw  
that it was a blue-cloaked man with hair of the same colour that was  
holding her sister hostage. Despite coming from below the ice he looked  
astonishingly dry. 

Collatra unhooked her whip from the belt of her green uniform and jacket  
and took out a poke-ball with her free hand. "A Pokemon League Master,"  
she stated angrily. 

Triana, Ania, Junior and Hikaru also held pokeballs at the ready.  
Laselle, silently unlatched her backpack from behind her. 

"Behind you!" Giselle warned. 

Laselle turned her head slightly and watched as two more cloaked figures,  
one in red and the last in yellow, came striding up, surrounding them in  
a three-point triangle. The ice beneath their steel-spiked boots crunched  
and cracked beneath their heavy footsteps. 

"That's right, Pokemon Masters," the blue-cloaked man said with an  
arrogant twist to his lips. "You don't seem to have any Pokemon Masters  
of your own right now, so you know that we can crush you any time  
we please." At that, Laselle realised that they thought Duplica was an  
ordinary Vulpix. The blue-cloaked man continued, "Now answer my  
questions, Rebel trash. Where is the traitor Ash and where are you  
keeping the Master of Rock?" He paused. "Oh, forgive me! How rude, but we  
haven't introduced ourselves! I'm Rainer, and those are my brothers, Pyro  
in the red and Sparky in the yellow." 

As Giselle was still caught in a hold from behind, her brown eyes were  
shifting to the left. A signal? Laselle thought. Her eyes drifted  
downward. Laselle slowly rolled her eyes down to follow her lead. Duplica  
still in Vulpix form was sitting down on her haunches, apparently looking  
uninterested, but the way her throat was pulsing and her leg muscles were  
twitching looked like she was about to spring into action. 

The one called Sparky, the one with blond spiky hair and the yellow  
cloak, suddenly let out a wolf-whistle. "Woah, that's a babe you got  
there, Rainer! Let's take her too!" 

Rainer grasped Giselle's chin and wrenched her face around so he could  
examine her. "You're right. Damn, if we won't have some fun tonight!" 

Giselle's brown eyes narrowed as she stared at him in contempt. "In your  
wet dreams, fanboy. Now!" she called out, as she twisted within his grip  
and kneed him in the balls simultaneously. 

As Rainer let out a breath of complete pain, she grasped him by the neck  
and threw him over her shoulder, surprisingly strong enough to launch him  
at the yellow-cloaked Sparky. Sparky yelled in confusion as his brother  
fell on top of him with a thud and they both collapsed into an  
uncoordinated heap on the ice. 

"VUL!" Duplica-Vulpix cried out in a cute voice as a long stream of flame  
exploded from her mouth at the red-cloaked Pyro's feet. The ice beneath  
his steel-spike boots melted and cracked and he shouted in anger as he  
collapsed into the hole she created. 

"Let's go!" Giselle shouted. She skated over, grasped the side of  
Laselle's green jacket and began pulling her away roughly. 

Colletra cracked her whip. "What are you talking about? Let's stay and  
fight!" 

Junior skated up and began pushing her from behind. "Against three  
Pokemon Masters? Ha ha, I don't think so!" 

Hikaru began to pushing the other two of Erika's trainers. "Junior me  
boy's right. The odds aren't in our favour. Let's find Master Bruno  
and the others first!" 

Duplica-Vulpix let out another huge flamethrower melting the ice between  
the three Pokemon Masters and them into a wide ravine. "Vul, that should   
slow them down!" Then she ran and leapt up on to Junior's shoulder. "Into   
the city everyone!"  
  


  
  


They were skating so fast down the steep slope of the frozen road that by  
now, the buildings by their sides were a complete white blur. Ash steered   
Erika along from behind her as he grasped the top of her shoulders,   
although it was a bit tricky since she was squirming so much and the   
green cloak he had accidentally pulled off her was wrapped around one   
shoulder. Pikachu had the job of making sure it didn't fall off. 

"Your hands are freezing!" Erika accused as she shivered beneath his  
fingers. 

"Well, if you'd put on your cloak, maybe you'd be a little warmer!" he  
said as he steered her smoothly past a curved area of the road and a   
raised manhole cover. 

Her voice was incredulous. "At this speed? No thanks!" 

"I think they're gaining!" Misty said from behind him. 

Ash glanced back to see the dark ice-growlithes were indeed catching up.  
There was so many of them, they were like a wave of darkness filling up  
the entire width of the street. Their growling was becoming louder at  
each second as their eyes glowed crimson red. "Can't you get rid of  
them?" Ash said annoyed. 

"Don't you think I tried that?" she called sarcastically. "Nothing I do  
affects them! Why do you think I was running away?" 

"Fine! Here, take Erika; I'll take care of it!" he said, thrusting Erika  
faster down the slope. Simultaneous as he pushed her, he spun a  
one-eighty on his skates and continued on in reverse so he could face the  
dark pokemon directly. 

Erika screeched in fright. "Hey, Ash ... ASH!" 

Misty gave him a dirty look as she skated past his side to intercept  
her. "You'll see what I mean," she called out over the wind as she  
overtook him and began to slide out of his vision. 

"Here take this," he said, throwing her Erika's cloak. When he heard her  
grasp Erika and steer her behind him, he lifted up his right arm so  
Pikachu could run along it. "Pikachu, Shadow Blade!" 

"PIKA!" Sparking darkly in shadows so that the light seemed to shift,  
Pikachu assumed black katana form as Ash grasped its hilt in both hands.  
And just in time as the first couple of dark growlithes gained enough to  
be in range to attack. 

"GROAR!" They leaped toward him, black needle-point teeth flashing within  
their icy muzzles. 

Ash did a reverse crossover on his skates to gain position and slashed  
a horizontal line. The sword of electric shadow seemed to leave a dark  
after-image as it sheared the dogs in half. But instead of blood gushing  
forth from the grievous wounds as the dismembered growlithes collapsed on  
to the ice and tumbled backward in pieces, ebony shards of half-frozen  
water flew into the air. 

However as Ash watched the remaining growlithes jump over their fallen  
brethren, he was surprised to see that the halves of the bodies began to  
knit back together again. Soon they had already rejoined at the back of  
the pack, snapping and hissing as if they had not just been cleaved into  
two distinct pieces. 

"See that?" Misty said in a told-you-so tone at his back as she steered  
Erika along. 

"I should have known," Ash replied as he slashed another pair of  
growlithes that had gotten too close. Icy-black heads flew off their  
shoulders as the pieces tumbled away, but he now knew they would just  
stick themselves together again. "These must be second level Forbidden  
Pokemon... they can resurrect themselves. The second gateway must be  
somewhere on this island." 

"This just keeps getting better and better," Misty said sarcastically. 

"Hey, the slope is evening out!" Erika said in joy as they began to slow  
down. But she grew panicked as she spotted something. "But there's a  
sharp turn up ahead, how are we going to make it at this speed?" 

Ash took a glance over his shoulder to see that the road curved at about  
a sixty degree angle at the bottom of the hillside. They would probably  
collide into a building if they tried to attempt it unaided. "Misty, you  
go on ahead and take care of it," he said as he slashed down a frozen  
telegraph pole on the side of the street with his sword. The pole fell on  
top of half a dozen Forbidden growlithes, crushing them to ice powder. "I  
have an idea." 

"Okay, Erika, let's go!" Misty said as she began to actually thrust her  
skates to accelerate even faster as she pushed her friend onward. 

"Shouldn't we be slowing down if we want to make that turn?" Erika asked  
in dread. 

"Trust me!" 

"Isn't that a synonym for 'panic now?'" 

Their voices grew fainter as they moved onward to take the corner and  
a skidding-on-ice noise began to replace it. As they did so, Ash took   
another glance backward to judge distances and absently decapitated   
several more growlithes who had gotten too close. After a few mental  
calculations, he counted in his head to three. "Okay ... now!" he   
shouted as he reversed his grip on the katana's hilt and thrust it point   
first into the ice. As he slid at high speed and began reverse cross-over   
steps to take the corner, the sword sheared through the ice of the road   
like a hot knife through butter. Broken shards of ice flew everywhere in   
front of him in a tight cloud of smoke-like snow. 

The growlithes of black ice growled in anger as they tumbled into the  
long chasm Ash was creating with his sword and splashed into the  
freezing-cold water underneath. Like lemmings, they all poured into the  
huge crack as if they were water in a bathtub that had just been  
unplugged. 

The technique also served a second purpose, as using the sword like a  
turning guide, he successfully took the corner at high speed. Then he  
ripped the sword out of the ice and spun another one-eighty to face  
forward again. In the front he saw that Misty and Erika had also made it  
around the corner. Although there never really was any doubt as he knew  
Misty was an exceptional skater, better than even him. Holding his sword  
horizontally behind his back with his right hand, he thrusted faster with  
his skates to catch up with them.  
  


  
  


"Looks like they split up," Rainer said as he crouched and examined the  
skate tracks on the icy road. "Three groups ... perfect. One of us for  
each." Then he stood up and smoothed down his long blue cloak. 

Pyro was looking around at the frozen city. Everything seemed to be the  
colour of white, a land of unbroken pale hues. He didn't get scared by  
much, but something about this place unnerved him. "You think that's  
wise, brother? What if we meet up with that damned Ash?" He shivered at a  
particularly unpleasant thought. "Or Mistress Lorelei?" 

Sparky slapped him on the back. "Hey, we can sense each other can't we?  
If any of us gets into trouble, we can just call out to each other's  
minds." He snorted. "Triverion can take care of anything." 

Pyro hissed as he felt pain at the slap. 

"Oh sorry," Sparky laughed. "I forgot old Bruno gave you a beating." 

Pyro shoved him back. "Very funny," he said annoyed. 

"Stop messing around," Rainer said in seriousness. "Suzie's waiting back  
at the ship and she'd have our hides if we don't succeed this time." His  
blue eyes got a far-away look. "And that doctor girl..." 

"Ha, I think Rainer's in love," Sparky said, nudging him with his elbow. 

Rainer coughed. "Well, we're wasting time. I'll take the western road.  
What about you guys?" 

"I'll take the middle," Sparky said. 

"I guess that leaves east for me," Pyro stated. 

Rainer began striding along the ice confidently towards the left-hand  
road. "Okay, if any of us grab anyone, we'll meet back here for  
interrogation. Otherwise, if we see Ash, we'll immediately call out to  
each other for help. Got that?" 

"Got it," Sparky and Pyro mirrored. 

They each went their separate ways. 

But little did they know, they would never meet again.  
  


  
  


"Hello, hello!" Sparky was shouting out, his voice echoing around the  
frozen walls of the barren buildings as he stomped along the road of ice  
with his heavy boots. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" 

He pointed his right fist at an icy mailbox and let fly a bolt of amber  
thunder. The powerful electricity shattered it to so many drops of  
snowflakes. 

"Are any of you behind that sign I wonder?" He let fly another bolt of  
lightning, this time from his left hand. All that was left of the street  
sign was a foggy vapour which dissipated to ozone. 

"Jolt, jolt!" 

Sparky looked down at his Jolteon. It's yellow spines were stiffened in  
alarm as it stood slightly crouched on its four legs. 

"What is it boy?" He looked in the direction it was facing but there was  
nothing there, only a bare store-front. 

"What, hungry already? But I just fed you back at the ship!" 

He heard a swishing sound behind his back and he immediately spun around,  
hands outstretched and blazing with lightning. He scored a long jagged  
line along the road of ice before he stopped to see what he hit. There  
was nothing, only a massive crack where his thunderbolts had scored the  
ground. 

"Strange," he mused. "I could've sworn someone was there." He took a step  
closer and noticed a parallel track made by ice-skates in the general  
area of his strikes. It cut across the road horizontally, but then just  
seemed to stop, like whoever made them just disappeared. 

"Jolteon, track whoever did that," he said pointing. There was no  
response. "Jolteon?" He turned around and gasped. 

His Jolteon seemed to have changed colour. To a translucent white. It  
stood completely still with a surprised expression on its face. Sparky  
ran up to it, the ice cracking beneath his boots and crouched by its  
side. He felt its skin and sucked in his breath as the coldness bit the  
flesh of his fingertips. It was frozen. And its life signs were  
non-existent. 

"Jolteon!" Sparky said in denial. "Wake up boy!" He grabbed it again and  
didn't care as his fingers prickled in agony from the freezing coldness.  
"Snap out of it!" He felt moisture slide down his cheek. "Snap out of it,  
I say!" 

A cold voice from behind him interrupted. "You should be happy. Your  
pokemon has gone to a better place." 

Sparky slowly stood up and turned. Before him, on elegant-looking ice  
skates stood a slim figure in a pale ice-blue cloak. Glowing green eyes  
flared in satisfaction within the shadows of its cloaked face. 

"Mistress Lorelei ... how could you?" Sparky said in pain. "Jolteon was  
my first pokemon ..." His voice tightened into anger. "And now you've  
turned him into a fucking ice block! DIE YOU COLD BITCH!" he shouted  
uncontrollably as he lifted his arms and began summoning so much  
electric charge into his body that the ice beneath his feet began to  
spark and bubble with power. His yellow cloak began floating in the  
sudden wind created by the abrupt summoning of so much thunder. 

"Warmth is a disease that lets one feel," Lorelei said softly as the  
lower folds of her icy cloak began to rustle revealing one long pale and  
smooth leg. "Abandon it while you can." Abruptly her form evaporated into  
a fine white mist just as Sparky launched a devastating bolt of pure  
electricity at her. 

But as the lightning touched the mist, it seemed to backfire. Sparky  
yelled as his hands lost all feeling within them. In horror he realised  
that his hands were slowly turning into ice. His skin cracked and popped  
as it hardened to frozen water. "No, what's happening ... NOOOOO-" Then  
his lips, tongue and throat turned into ice and he could no longer even  
talk. He thought about running away, but his frozen legs would not  
respond either. And soon, he could no longer think at all. 

It was just so cold.  
  


  
  


Someone was watching him. Pyro just knew it. He looked up above at all  
the tall icy buildings, carefully searched each frozen window, but he  
could never see anything. 

"Flareon, keep a sharp eye everywhere," he warned to his orange and  
red-furred pokemon who was trotting by his side. "And especially for that  
damn Bruno. I wanna pay him back for what he did back at the ship." 

"Flrrr," Flareon growled in agreement as it turned its head from side to  
side, its fur burning softly with small flames. 

Pyro tightened his red cloak and hooded himself. "I hate this place. It's  
too damn cold for our tastes." And his skin was still stinging from when  
that vulpix had melted the floor right beneath his feet and he had fallen  
in that freezing water. Weren't fire pokemon supposed to be loyal to  
their type? That was what was wrong with this world, no one was worthy  
of trust unless they were a blood relation. He saddened as he thought of  
his dead little brother. When Sabrina had shown him the melted remains of  
Mikey in that hell-hole Mount Moon with a psychic image, he had vowed  
that his murderer would pay. Somehow, he wasn't surprised that it was the  
traitor Ash. There was no monstrosity that that Shadow-spawn bastard  
wouldn't commit... 

Then again, as he looked around the street, at the various frozen ice  
statues of people, it looked like Mistress Lorelei was even worse. How  
could she do this to her own people? No wonder why they couldn't contact  
anyone at Cinnabar Island back at Indigo Plateau. They were all dead. 

As he looked over the features of one frozen woman as he passed her, he  
was startled to realise that he recognised her. It was his old neighbour  
back at his childhood home that he had had a crush on. He had always had  
a dream of someday going back to look for her... now he had achieved that  
dream but not in the way he wanted. He walked quicker to pass her. He  
couldn't bear to look at her frozen lifeless body anymore. 

"So you're just going to ignore me, Pyro?" a frozen voice said from  
behind him, sounding as if it were long in disuse. 

Pyro abruptly stopped, his Flareon pausing in alertness as well. "It  
can't be, I'm imagining it," he said aloud, refusing to turn around. But  
when he heard the creaking of footsteps behind him, he succumbed to  
morbid curiosity and turned around. Impossibly, the frozen woman was  
slowly walking toward him, eyes the colour of glowing blood within her  
icy face. 

"I'm hurt," she croaked. "I thought we loved each other..." 

"You-You're not her!" Pyro stammered. "Swana is dead ..." 

"Oh, but you're wrong!" the ice woman lifted up her arms to the sky. "I  
feel so alive! So alive! Join me, Pyro ... join me in the bliss of this  
arctic wilderness!" 

"Flareon, Fire Blast!" Pyro said in panic. 

"FLARE!" Blistering heat replaced the coldness of the air as the  
five-limbed star of thick red flame erupted from his pokemon's mouth. 

The ice-woman screamed as the flame attack ripped through her cold body  
melting off her body below the waist. Her upper torso crashed on to the  
hard ground and her left arm shattered into so many pieces of ice and  
water. 

"Pyro ... how could you. I loved you." Her glowing red eyes winked out  
and the rest of her broken body began melting into a slimy puddle. 

Pyro fell to his knees on the icy ground, not caring about the extreme  
coldness that bit at the flesh of his legs. He felt numb. 

"You had the chance of love," a cold voice said at his back. "And yet you  
refused it." 

Pyro fell to leaning on his hands. "Mistress Lorelei ..." he said in an  
uncaring voice. "That was a sick joke. An abomination." 

"You are a stupid man," Lorelei decided. "I was only trying to give you  
companionship before I sent you into the bleakness of ice. Even I was  
denied that chance." 

"You need help, Lorelei ... help to your death!" He flipped to his feet  
to launch an attack, but he was much too slow. He didn't even have time  
to warn his brothers telepathically. Soon another ice statue and his  
matching pokemon graced the sidewalk of the city.  
  


  
  


Giselle was peeking around the frozen dumpster. "I think we lost them." 

"Do you see any of the others? Laselle asked, shivering as she crouched  
and leaned against the alleyway wall. 

"I think I may have seen Duplica, your little boyfriend and his  
babysitter run into a building about some time back. As for your three  
friends, I haven't got a clue where they went. I still think splitting up  
was a bad idea." 

"Well, other than making it harder for them to find us, I guess it would  
let us find Ash and the others quicker," Laselle offered. A word flared  
out of Giselle's speech. "Boyfriend?" she said in puzzlement. Then her  
cheeks heated up. "Oh, you mean, Junior. No, he's *not* my boyfriend." 

Giselle slid away from the corner and crouched down with her. She gave an  
infuriating smile as she brushed her long brown hair with the fingers  
of one hand. "I'm proud of you little sister. You can never have too many  
admirers." 

"You're crazy," Laselle said with a shake of her head. "Oh, by the way,  
that was a nice move you did on that Rainer guy." 

Giselle shrugged in mock-modesty. "Well beautiful girls like me have to  
know self-defence if we want to protect our virtue, you know." 

She stared. "Now I remember why I always tried to avoid you, big sister." 

Giselle then turned serious. "Well, we can't stay in one place too long.  
We better get going." She peeked around the dumpster again. "Okay, see  
that ice cream store over there? At my signal we'll cross the road and  
duck inside." 

Laselle stood up and looked at what she was pointing at. "Isn't it a bit  
cold for ice-cream?" 

"Don't be silly. We can get out the back door of the store and continue  
on north to the centre of the island." She looked up pointedly at the  
peak of the white volcano that could just be seen over the roofs of the  
city. "I have a feeling we'll find what we need to find at the volcano." 

Laselle arched a brow in perfect imitation of her older sister. 

"Well okay, it can't hurt to maybe pick up a little ice cream," Giselle  
said with a guilty smile. 

"You'd probably just break a tooth on it, but it's your loss." 

She waited for Giselle's all clear signal before they skated out of the  
alleyway one after another and crossed the street quickly. After leaping  
over the gutter on the other side and sliding across the sidewalk,  
Giselle rammed the frozen door of the ice cream store with her shoulder.  
However, it refused to budge. 

"Frozen shut," Giselle stated softly. "Let's go around the alley at the  
side instead." 

Laselle brushed her hair from her shoulder as she turned to skate around  
the corner. "I guess that means no ice cream." 

"Very funny." 

This alleyway at the right side of the ice-cream store was darker than  
the one they had been hiding in earlier for some reason that Laselle  
couldn't guess. It also seemed colder and she shivered as she skated  
through slowly and zipped up her green jacket the furthest it would go. 

She spotted another one of those ice-statues standing near the frozen  
brick wall and shivered again. "I feel so sorry for those people. How  
could it have felt to be frozen solid like that?" 

Behind her Giselle let out a breath. "Well, it can't be pleasant, let me  
tell you. I've treated patients with severe frost-bite before and even   
that isn't pretty." All of a sudden she gasped and held on to Laselle's  
shoulder to stop her from going on. "Do you notice anything funny about  
that frozen person?" 

Laselle turned her gaze back upon the statue. When she had first spotted  
it, she had immediately looked away as just looking at them frightened  
her to death. But for some reason, the statue looked familiar. It was a  
woman ... with a ponytail. Frozen to ice that was steaming slightly as if  
it was new. And then she saw the skates on its feet. And the whip in its  
hand. A whip that was now also frozen into ice. The terrified expression  
on a pretty face that would now never know any other emotion. 

She opened her mouth to let out a shrill scream until Giselle hurriedly   
covered her mouth from behind and stopped her. A minute later, her   
sister let go, but Laselle still felt like screaming as her heart felt   
like it was beating at four times the normal rate. "That-That's   
Colletra," she stammered in a voice full of denial. "But-but, how?" 

Giselle nodded grimly. "I'm sorry." She placed her hands on Laselle's  
shoulders and began to steer her away from it. "I wouldn't look at the  
others either." 

"What others?" Laselle immediately asked in a high voice as she ripped  
herself away from her sister's grasp and turned back. In horror she  
realised there were two other statues standing partially behind the first  
one. Immediately she picked out a woman in a coat and the other in a cap  
and jacket. Frozen in death. "Ania and Triana too," Laselle said in a  
heartrending whisper. "They were my friends ... my friends in the Grass  
division of the Rebellion." Her eyes felt like they would flood at any  
moment. She couldn't believe this! How could they be dead? She felt numb  
from the inside-out. 

Giselle skated back and roughly began to drag her away, further into the  
alley. "Laselle!" she admonished. "Snap out of it! Do you realise that  
whoever or whatever did this could still be around?" 

"How can you be so cold!" Laselle accused. "People are dead here - people  
we know and worked with. Are we just going to leave them here? We should  
give them a proper burial!" 

"Don't be ridiculous, little sister!" Giselle said in a more firm tone.  
"I'm not being cold - I'm being smart! I'm trying to get your life out of  
danger - focus on the living! There's nothing more we can do for them,  
don't you understand that? I've already seen too much death that I may be  
desensitised to it, but I could never be desensitised to losing my only  
sister!" 

Laselle suddenly deflated. She felt like crying. "I-I'm sorry, Giselle." 

"Now don't break out into hysterics over this, understand? Be brave!"  
Giselle said. She suddenly stopped. "The alleyway's blocked. Damn, this  
was a waste of time!" she said in disgust as she pointed out the tall  
wall of ice in front of them, visible now that they were close enough. It  
was tall enough and slippery enough that it would be impossible to scale. 

Laselle spotted something to the left. "Wait, there's a door." She  
pointed to the icy-brick wall where the tall rectangular shape of a  
doorway stood. 

Giselle tossed her long brown hair in thought. "That may lead into the  
ice-cream store actually. Maybe we can still go with Plan A." 

"And eat lots of ice cream?" Laselle joked, although it fell a little  
flat in the wake of what they had seen. She still couldn't get Colletra's  
frozen expression of fear from out of her mind. 

"Maybe," Giselle said, trying to lighten the mood. She tried the door  
handle and surprisingly it opened. "What do you know? Success. I've just  
got the touch, I think," she said with her usual touch of arrogance. They   
skated inside quickly and shut the door. Despite Giselle's front of   
bravery, Laselle could sense that her sister was also pretty shaken up   
by the sight of three of their companions led to an icy grave. 

"Well, what have we here?" an amused male voice suddenly said. 

Laselle immediately searched out within the dim frozen room for the  
speaker. Sitting at one of the round serving tables with his booted feet  
resting high upon a chair was that Rainer guy. 

"Laselle, get out of here!" Giselle shouted as she backed away pushing  
her to the door. 

"Uh uh!" Rainer scolded her as he lifted one hand in the shape of a gun.  
"Bang!" A bullet of water left his finger and collided into the door  
behind them. Immediately it splashed all over and froze. Laselle tried to  
open it but it was jammed. She tried harder but her hands flared in pain  
as frost-bite began seeping into her fingers and she had to let go. 

"I can't believe my luck," Rainer said as he lowered his feet from the  
seat and stood up, smoothing a lock of blue hair from his forehead. "The  
very bitch who abused my privates earlier and she just comes waltzing in  
like she owned the place." 

"Were you the one who turned our friends to ice in the alleyway?" Giselle  
immediately asked coldly. 

He looked surprised. "What are you talking about? Alleyway? But I didn't  
even come in here through there - I came in through the front door when I  
saw you two unsuccessfully try to sneak across the street." 

Giselle tapped her chin in thought. "No, it probably couldn't have been  
you anyway. You're probably not powerful enough." 

He looked offended. "Well, I'm certainly powerful enough to have at the  
likes of you," he said airily. He shifted his navy gaze towards Laselle.  
"And what's this? Such resemblance! It looks like I get a younger version  
of the lovely woman as well." 

Immediately, Giselle stepped in front of her. "Touch her and you die." 

Laselle grabbed her arm. "Giselle, what are you doing? He's a Pokemon  
Master." 

"Indeed," Rainer said as he stepped closer and threw a fold of his blue  
cloak over the shoulder to allow access to the blue poke-ball attached to  
his belt. But curiously as he looked Giselle over, his dark-blue eyes  
widened. "Oh what have we here? Your eyes are glowing ... you seem to  
have an affinity for mastery." 

"Maybe," Giselle said as she tossed her long, brown hair in contempt  
lifted her chin haughtily. 

"What is he talking about?" Laselle asked, puzzled. 

Rainer looked at her. "It seems your sister? Your sister has slight  
elemental abilities of her own." 

She was shocked. "Is that true?" 

Giselle stamped the skate on her left foot on the ground. A puff of steam  
arose from the floor and a narrow crack ran along it in a zig-zag motion  
directly at Rainer. He yelled as he was powerfully smashed backward into  
the icy wall of the room and fell on to his rear. 

"That answer your question, Laselle dear?" she asked wryly. 

"But-but ... no one knew! Why did you keep it a secret?" 

Giselle sighed. "Look, I never wanted any of the complications that come  
with being a Pokemon Master. As a Master you're automatically a target.  
And plus, there was just something to be said about just being plain old  
'Doctor Giselle' a beautiful woman." She let out a hard laugh of some  
unknown emotion. Turning her head, she levelled glowing brown eyes  
at her. "And this stays strictly a secret understand? I don't want this  
coming out!" 

"Uh, consider it a secret, big sister," Laselle said, a little bit  
scared. 

Rainer snorted as he slowly stood up and wiped a trickle of red blood  
that was leaking from his mouth with the back of his left hand. "As if  
you would get the chance to keep it." He lifted his hands to the side and  
a liquid blue glow enveloped them. "Ground is weak against Water and now  
you'll find out just how weak!" 

"Laselle, out of the way!" Giselle said desperately as she shoved her  
clear. Her form became shrouded in a brown light and she jerked her  
arms in an upward motion. As Rainer's twin blast of cold water shot  
forth, it was blocked by a wall of hard earth which rose up out of the  
icy ground simultaneous with the movement of her arms. 

"Let me help!" Laselle called out over the noise of water and earth  
colliding. She opened up her pack to release Caterpie who crawled on to  
her shoulder. 

Rainer spotted them out of the corner of his eye and he suddenly burst  
out in laughter. "Bwahahaha! This is just rich! A stinking caterpie for  
crying out loud!" 

However at the distraction, Giselle managed to launch a volley of hard  
rock from her wall and strike him in the arm. As a result, his left hand  
shot of water went wild into the ceiling, blowing off part of the roof in  
icy chunks. 

"Bitch," he hissed in pain, still keeping up the assault with a one arm  
Water Gun. With his now free hand which was bleeding, he pulled his  
poke-ball out and threw it to the side. "Vaporeon, Hydro Pump!" 

The ball exploded open in mid-air to free his somersaulting blue-finned  
pokemon in a blaze of watery energy. "VEE!" it shrilled as it landed on  
all fours and opened its mouth to let out a giant circular pillar of hard  
blue water. 

Giselle went to reach within her white coat for her own pokemon.  
"Marowak-" Then she screamed as before she could release it, the  
Vaporeon's attack combined with Rainer's overpowered her wall of Ground  
and smashed her in the face, flipping her around in a broken back-flip to  
land hard on her chest. She screamed again at the impact with the  
solid-ice floor. 

"Oh, did you hurt your pretty tits?" Rainer said as he jerked his arm  
down, cutting off the stream of water. He began to walk forward. "I'll  
massage them for you." 

Giselle groaned on the floor, blood leaking from a cut near her eye to  
pool on the ice she was laying on. "Laselle," she whispered in a soft  
voice. "Run..." 

But with the violence done to her sister, a haze of red had clouded in  
Laselle's vision. "How dare you!" she shouted at Rainer. "You're nothing  
but a stupid bully and a pervert!" 

Rainer turned his cold blue gaze on her. "Little girl, you actually want  
to stay here and watch what I do to your sister?" He began loosening his  
pants underneath his cloak. "Or do you want a turn too?" 

"Caterpie, Tackle!" 

"What's that going to do... ARGH!" he shouted in pain as her small green  
caterpillar pokemon leaped off her shoulder to headbutt him in the face.  
To complete the move, Caterpie turned a backflip in midair and landed on  
the ground with its antennae twitching in satisfaction. 

"Pei!" it cried. 

Rainer stumbled backward in disbelief clutching his heavily bleeding  
face with one hand. "That .. that *bug* broke my nose!" he exclaimed  
furiously as if he could not believe it. "Vaporeon, Ice Beam!" he   
ordered in rage, pointing down at the tiny green pokemon. 

"VEE!" The Vaporeon opened its mouth again to let out a shot of icy-cold.  
It struck Caterpie in the torso and completely solidified it in a prison  
of iced-up water. 

Rainer cracked his knuckles. "Just for that, you little bitch, you're  
getting it first," he said in annoyance as he stepped forward rapidly. 

But Laselle did the last thing he expected. She attacked. "You bastard!"  
she cried as she bowled him over in one leap and began punching him in  
the face over and over. 

"Argh, get off me you little vixen!" he said in complete surprise. He   
managed to roll over and overpower her with her wrists captured in his   
grip but only after he had sustained two black eyes and a fat lip to go   
with his broken nose. 

Laselle struggled ineffectually underneath him. "Pervert! Bully!" she  
shouted and spat up into his face. 

"That's it, you're getting it-" Rainer began in extreme irritation as the  
spittle slid down his cheek, but stopped as he noticed a weird glow to  
the side. He turned his head and widened his eyes as he spotted the  
frozen caterpie emitting a whitish light. "Hey, what is that? Vaporeon,   
freeze it again, it's getting out!" 

But before the Vaporeon could even open its mouth, the ice shattered  
sending sharp shrapnel everywhere. Rainer and his pokemon cried out as  
bits of dagger-like ice shot into their flesh, knocking them backward. 

Freed, Laselle jumped up to a crouch and slid away to lean against the  
wall. Anxiously, she looked at what happened to her caterpie. What she   
saw shocked her. 

"Free!" the butterfree chirped as it hovered in the air with slow beats  
of its wings. Its wings and body were coloured a complete night-black;  
the only offset to the colour were its glowing crimson eyes. 

Rainer groaned as he slowly pushed himself to his hands and knees. His  
face was a bloody mess from the beating Laselle had given him. "It  
evolved? Straight to a butterfree? That's impossible!" 

Laselle was in shock too. That was right, how could it have evolved to a  
butterfree? It had completely skipped its second stage evolution as a  
metapod! 

The butterfree looked at her as if waiting for something. "Oh yeah,"  
Laselle finally said. She pointed at the fallen Water Master and his  
pokemon. "Butterfree, Confusion!" 

But instead of the Confusion rays that she expected to come out of  
Butterfree's antennae, instead a solid beam of sapphire psychic power  
erupted forth in a shot so powerful, it created a storm of wind inside  
the enclosed room. Rainer and his Vaporeon were smashed through the wall  
and outside the building as if they were bullets through paper. Through  
the hole they left in the wall, she watched them continue to fly away  
until they smashed through the building across the street. At the  
collision, the building collapsed on top of them like a house of playing  
cards. 

For a moment there was silence as Laselle dropped her mouth open in  
complete astonishment. 

Then Giselle groaned on the floor. "I was right. You really have moved up  
in the world, sister dear."  
  


  
  


Ash carefully looked down through the frozen branches of the tree.  
"Nothing. I think falling into that crack I made gave us enough time to  
lose them." 

They were sitting up high in a frozen tree house that they had found in   
a public park playground for shelter and rest. Mostly for Erika though,   
as she had been too tired to go on. Right now, he watched in bemusement   
as she rubbed the arches of her bare feet with her hands. 

"I don't think I like skating," she said tiredly as she blew a strand of  
short blue-black hair away from her mouth. 

Pikachu and Misty were warming their hands on another dark campfire he  
had created. 

"You sure that using our elements won't attract notice? We are trying to   
lose them after all, not find more trouble," Misty said as she brushed  
the flakes of ice from her long red hair with a small hand-comb. 

"I already explained it," Ash said, collapsing down next to them and  
suddenly feeling very tired. He threaded his fingers through the long  
black hair of his bangs above his eyes and sighed. "Too much Forbidden to  
notice it, if that makes sense." 

Misty shrugged one shoulder. "In a weird Ashy-kind-of-way, it sort of  
does." 

"Actually, I think it's more of a weird Misty-kind-of-way," he  
retaliated. 

"No, it's an Ashy-weird," she fired back. 

"No, definitely Misty-weird." 

"Chaaa..." Pikachu groaned in a fed up tone of voice. 

"You can say that again," Erika sighed. 

"Chaaa..." Pikachu obliged her. 

Unexpectedly, Erika suddenly looked at Ash and narrowed her grass-green  
eyes at him. "Besides, you seem particularly well after a week of  
'Hydroxin Waterflower.' You guys are all alike, after bed, you forget  
about it the next day." 

Ash leaned back against the wall of the tree house and put his hands  
behind his head. "What are you talking about?" 

She looked from him to Misty pointedly. "I assume since he seems very  
much alive, he's free of the poison? And to do that, you had to um ..."  
She coughed. "You know..." 

Misty suddenly crawled over to Ash and grasped the sides of his head with  
both hands. "Actually, I didn't. And I was wondering about that all the  
way back at South Lavender." 

"Didn't what?" Ash said, still confused. Misty's blue eyes were staring  
into his seriously. "What are you doing? You want to kiss me or  
something?" 

"Don't flatter yourself," Misty said as her eyes glowed a bright blue, an  
obvious sign that she was accessing her power. A minute later, the glow  
of her eyes died down and she sat back down next to him. "I was right.  
You're completely free from my influence." 

"Isn't that a good thing?" Ash said flippantly. 

"I don't understand it," Misty said, ignoring his witticisms. "There was  
no way he could be free of my poison unless I flushed it out of his  
system." 

"Wait, wasn't Valdera at South Lavender too?" Erika suddenly said. 

Misty narrowed her eyes in sudden thought. Then after coming to a sudden  
conclusion, she slapped him on the face. Ash's teeth seemed to rattle in  
his mouth. 

"And just what was that for?" he asked with his brow raised as he rubbed  
himself on his now stinging cheek. 

"You-you two-timing gigolo!" Misty accused. "You, you male whore!" 

Ash pushed himself away from her. "Have you gone crazy?" 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu said, also in puzzlement. 

"You slept with my sister!" 

Ash blinked. "Well I did go out with her back at Pokemon League after we  
split up. And might I again inform you that I didn't even know you two  
were related even though that might seem unbelievable. I thought you knew  
that?" 

"Not at Pokemon League, just now at South Lavender!" 

"But that's impossible. I was imprisoned and asleep most of the time! I  
was injured, remember." He shook his head. "Besides, why should you care?  
We're officially a broken couple." 

Misty grew tongue-tied. "Because ... well, because!" 

Then it was Ash's turn to get angry as he remembered what Duplica had  
told him on the ship. "And what's this about not telling me the whole  
truth back at Cerulean? How I attacked you under mind-control?" 

"What?" Erika said in alarm. "Misty, you didn't tell any of us about  
that." 

Misty twiddled her thumbs. "I-I didn't think it would help." She looked  
at him. "You seemed so depressed..." 

"I have to know things like that," Ash told her. "As it is, it doesn't  
look good. I have to make sure that it never happens again ... or who  
knows what will happen. Now seriously, tell me the truth. What exactly  
happened back at South Lavender? And just how *did* we capture Brock? And  
just how did the base get destroyed? And don't tell me it's because Brock  
and Valdera destroyed it in their fight; I don't buy it one bit." 

She looked away. "Okay, I'll tell you what really happened. You-" 

"Wait," he cut her off. "Do you hear something?" 

"Look, do you want me to tell you or not?" 

"Move!" He dived forward, knocking Misty and Erika away with a flying  
tackle, just as something exploded through the floor. It bisected the  
whole tree house into two distinct pieces which, in turn, blew apart into  
countless other bits of debris. 

Everything was in confusion as Ash, Misty, Erika and Pikachu were  
suddenly floating in midair after the abrupt eruption, with broken pieces  
of icy wood, branches and tree leaves to accompany them. Then Ash flipped  
upright in midair, and rapidly descended to land in a crouch on the  
icy-grassy floor far below the tree, his black cloak billowing around  
him. Misty and Erika followed suit, also landing in crouches by his sides  
while Pikachu landed on his left shoulder, alert. Subsesquently, bits of  
the destroyed tree house fell all around them with several muted crashes  
and a showering of shattering ice. 

"What was that?" Misty asked breathlessly as her long red hair continued  
to settle around the shoulders of her blue cloak. 

A hiss came from above them and they leaped backward as a white-furred  
panther-like pokemon landed with its razor-blade claws outstretched just  
where they had been crouching before. The red jewel on its forehead was  
blinking threateningly as it licked its chops around its dagger-sharp  
whiskers. Vertical slit-like eyes stared at them unblinkingly and seemed  
to glow an eerie pale white. 

"A persian!" Erika exclaimed as a green sparkle covered her dainty feet  
and her boots formed back along them. She rose to a stand and  
outstretched her hands as she summoned her long black staff. 

Ash held her off with a hand as he remained in a crouch. "Wait. I think I  
recognise this persian." 

A flash from above in the corner of his eye warned him just in time. He  
fell backward as a thrown dagger just missed his throat and sunk into the  
icy earth between his ankles. 

"Up there!" Ash warned as he lifted his hand and threw a long bolt of  
black lightning up at the tree the dagger had come from. The cracking  
charge of shadow electricity sheared off one of the branches and sent it  
crashing to the ground in a hail of icy sparks. It revealed a slim figure  
dressed in black baggy trousers and a short-sleeved tank-top that was   
standing in the upper-canopy of the branches. Its face was covered by a   
ninja's veil while long red hair up in a ponytail streamed out the   
opening at the back of its head. "Jessie!" he exclaimed, recognising her. 

"And James!" Misty called out as she dodged another dagger which flew out  
from the bushes and embedded itself in the icy trunk of the tree they had  
just fallen from. Sure enough, a figure dressed similar to Jessie, but  
wearing a long-sleeved black shirt instead, somersaulted out of the  
bushes. A lock of bright blue hair flared out of the slit in his mask  
truthfully revealing him as the male counterpart of the Jessie and James  
duo. 

"Team Rocket?" Erika said in puzzlement as she scratched her head with  
one hand. "I thought that organisation was destroyed at the conclusion of  
the Dark Pokemon Wars." 

Ash stood up and backed away as Jessie flipped down from the tree and  
landed softly in front of him. She had begun spinning a pair of  
three-pronged sai knives around the fingers of both hands. "These two  
aren't Team Rocket anymore. We met them back at Mount Moon, and to tell  
the truth they didn't seem too bad. In fact, they were helping us  
dispatch some Pokemon League soldiers." 

Misty, in turn, was backing away from James, who had also begun spinning  
sai knives around his hands. "That's right." 

Persian had begun to stalk Erika, who also began to back away. "Well, if  
these people are now such fine upstanding citizens, then just why in the  
name of all Grass Pokemon are they attacking *us*?" 

"Look at their eyes!" Misty said aloud. 

Ash did so and narrowed his own. "Didn't Jessie have blue eyes? A real  
sinister kind of blue. Now it looks like they're washed out - a pale  
white." 

"Same with James and Persian," Misty said. "And usually, they'd be  
talking a kind of trash talk. It isn't like them to be silent for more  
than a few minutes like this." 

"Mind control? Was I like this?" 

"Not really. Your eyes were red." 

"Um," Erika interjected. "I'd hate to interrupt your little chat, but  
they're getting awfully close now." 

"Well, it's best if we just knock them unconscious until we find out why  
they're like this," Ash said. "Try your Sleep Powder?" 

"Good idea," Erika said as she lifted one hand. Her green eyes began to  
glow and her cloak and shoulder-length hair arose to waver sinuously.  
"Hope this works!" she shouted as she scrunched up her fist and then  
seemed to throw something at the three former members of Team Rocket.  
Sparkly yellow powder flared brightly in the air as it settled over them  
in a light coating of stars. But still Jessie, James and Persian  
continued to advance. 

"Uh, what was the use-by date on your Sleep Powder, Erika?" Ash asked in  
a tone as dry as dirt. 

Erika glared at him. "Maybe they're immune to Grass techniques." 

Misty gave a slight smile of recollection. "Well, they're certainly not  
immune to Electric attacks, Ash. Why don't you paralyse them?" 

"Okay, Pikachu, Thunder Wave!" he said, throwing Pikachu up into the air. 

His dark electric mouse sparked darkly as it flipped around high.   
"Pika ... CHUUU!" he shrilled as a tidal wave of ebony thunder emitted  
from his body and splashed over the trio. 

But when the electricity dissipated, they were still unaffected,  
unstoppably advancing. 

Pikachu landed softy on the frozen grassy ground on his hind legs and  
blinked his cobalt-blue eyes. His pointed ears and jagged tail were  
twitching in confusion. "Pika?" 

"Uh, what was the use-by date on your Pikachu, Ash?" Erika took great  
pleasure in saying. 

"Very funny," Ash said, as he blew a lock of hair that fallen over his  
left eye with a twist of his lips. "Something's definitely wrong here." 

"There's always the old fashioned way," Misty said, as liquid energy  
formed around her hands into her twin ice daggers. 

"Right," Erika said as she grasped her staff with both hands and began  
spinning it around in three-sixty degree revolutions in front of her. 

Ash looked down at Pikachu. "I don't want any fatalities little pal, so,  
uh..." He looked up at the tree and pointed. "You stay up there and watch  
okay?" 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu said as he folded his little arms, annoyed. 

"Okay, if you do this for me, I'll give you an extra helping of ketchup  
when we get back to the ship." 

Pikachu's tummy rumbled. "Cha," he said embarrassed, then nodded his chin  
and scampered up the tree to sit on the branch. He gave Ash a thumbs up.  
"Chu, pikachu!" 

"Thanks, pal! This'll only take a few seconds anyway," Ash said, just as  
Jessie tried a roundhouse kick, which he blocked with a crossing of his  
arms. But then, expecting a blow of strength that would normally come  
from a woman, he was completely surprised when the power of the hit  
propelled him sliding away backward until the lower edge of a  
slippery-dip at his back tripped him over to fall on his bottom and he  
slid up the kiddie slide in reverse. At the top, gravity decided to put  
in its two cents and pulled him down again just as if he were a real kid  
playing on the slide. Of course, since the slide was all iced up, he  
slid down much too fast and he fell on his butt at the bottom. 

"Cha ha ha!" Pikachu laughed from his vantage point atop the tree. 

"This is embarrassing," Ash said as he ripped the folds of his cloak away  
that had fallen in front of his face and stood up, rubbing his aching  
forearms. 

Meanwhile Misty and Erika were about to take on James and Persian, side  
by side. 

"Why do I always have to get the Pokemon?" Erika complained as she dodged  
a few testing slashes of Persian's front claws. 

"I don't know," Misty shrugged as she began clashing blades with James'  
sais with icy sparks. "Maybe you just have a way with animals." 

"I'd rather have a way with men," Erika declared as Persian growled and  
finally leaped up at her. To dodge, she struck the end of her staff into  
the frozen grass and pole-vaulted over his head to land on top of some  
monkey bars in the centre of the playground, but almost slipped until her  
boots found purchase upon the narrow bars of ice. 

"Isn't that the same thing?" Misty sighed as James began a three step  
offense with his blades that she was hard-pressed to counter. She sucked  
in her breath as one of the knives almost slashed across her wrist and  
she couldn't twist away in time for a rising flying kick which took her  
in the shoulder and knocked her away powerfully. She flew away a dozen  
metres and landed on her back on a kiddie swing which swung backward and  
deposited her on the ground on her back in short order. "Owww," she  
groaned as the ice blades on her hands winked out. 

Then she screamed in shock as someone fell on top of her in a tumble of  
black clothing. Golden-brown eyes looked into her own. 

"Ugh, sorry Misty, but Jessie packs quite a punch," Ash mumbled. 

She threw him off her with a growl and he rotated in midair to land on  
his feet with a flap of his cloak. 

"What are you doing? I thought you were supposed to be good in a fight?   
Are you going easy on her?" Misty asked in annoyance as she jumped   
upright. 

Ash shrugged as he turned back to Jessie who was now leaping toward him  
silently on the tops of all the playground equipment. "Maybe. I don't  
really like fighting women, especially when they're friends." 

"Friends?" Misty asked as she turned around to face James as he was also  
leaping toward her on the tops of the playground equipment. 

"Well, we've known them so long now, that it just feels right to call  
them that," he explained. 

"Yeah, trying to steal Pikachu most of that time," Misty snorted. "I  
think that punch rattled your brains is what I think." 

"Well at least, I have a brain to get rattled," he replied sardonically. 

"Are you implying something?" 

"Is it that obvious?" 

She turned around with blue fire in her eyes. "Why, you-" 

"JUMP!" Ash shouted and he leapt upwards, grasping Misty's arm to carry  
her upward with him. 

Below them, Jessie and James collided into each other, their skulls hard  
enough to knock each other unconscious and fall flat on their backs. 

Ash and Misty turned a flip in the air and then landed back down on the  
ground with a hard thump of their boots, their cloaks billowing around  
them. Misty descended to one knee to examine the dynamic duo. 

"They'll be fine," she said after a while and looked up at him. "Nothing  
serious." 

"Heh," Ash said, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "It looks  
like that being mind-controlled still left their intelligence intact." 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu suddenly warned. 

Ash turned to see what Pikachu was pointing at and just managed to catch  
the corner of someone's black robe disappear from behind a tree at the  
far edge of the park. "Someone was watching!" he shouted as he crouched  
and leaped up high on to the branch of the nearest frozen tree. "Go check  
if Erika's okay, I'll get whoever it is!" he said as he began leaping  
from tree to tree towards where he had seen it, his cloak flapping behind  
him at each jump. "C'mon, Pikachu!" 

"Chu!" Pikachu said as he also began leaping from tree to tree after him.  
  


  
  


Misty frowned after them. She was sorely tempted to follow, but Erika may  
need her help after all. Turning around, she was surprised to see that it  
was getting foggy. White steam was rising from the frozen floor, vapour  
of water like her name. Wait a second, she thought as she turned around  
again. The mist was rising much too fast to be anything natural... 

"Mistaria, you're mine," a voice as cold as the mist suddenly said softly  
in her ear. Hands formed out of the whiteness, grabbing her and her   
thoughts turned into the bleak frozenness of despair.  
  


  
  


When the park ended, Ash jumped from the tree to the roof of a frozen  
house and almost slipped, before he gained his balance and ran along the  
slippery tiles quickly but carefully. A jingling noise sounded beneath  
him. There! He spotted the black-robed figure running along the sidewalk  
from below. Smoothly, he leaped off the roof head-first, arms  
outstretched into a flying tackle. As he caught him about the waist, he   
used his momentum to bring them both down and he rolled them over until   
he caught him in a secure arm-lock from behind. "Alright, who are you   
and what were you doing watching us?" he asked gruffly. 

But then long black hair filtered into his vision; it was a girl! 

"I-I'm sorry," she sobbed in a pretty voice. "I-I was just so scared! I-I  
was looking for help and I thought you could ... but-but I thought you  
were going to kill me!" 

Immediately, he let go of her and scrambled backward, feeling ashamed.  
"No, I think I'm the one who has to say sorry ... I had no idea," he said  
scratching the back of his head. "Did I hurt you?" 

The girl turned around revealing a cute pretty face dominated by  
large pale-silver eyes that almost looked white. On the black robe she  
wore, she had a variety of charms and necklaces draped around it and that  
was the jingling noise he had heard when she had been running. "Oh no ...  
I-I, just a bruise I think. Her milk-pale cheeks blushed red as she  
looked at him. "Oh, you're so cute!" Then she blushed even more and  
looked away. "I-I mean sorry, I shouldn't be so forward!" 

Ash stood up and put his hands behind his head. "Heh heh heh, no it's  
alright." She reminded him of Laselle for some reason ... maybe because  
they looked about the same age - about fifteen or so. 

He lowered a hand and helped her to her feet. She stood about as tall as  
his shoulder, and he suddenly felt very protective of her. "So ... uh ...  
uh..." 

"Chanelle," she offered with a slight smile as she looked up at him. 

"Chanelle ... what are you doing in a place like this? Oh great, that  
sounds like a pick-up line ... I mean seriously, this place is dead, I  
don't know what's up with that." 

Chanelle looked down at her feet suddenly turning even paler than white  
if that seemed possible. "I-I lived here ... with my family ... until the  
sky went dark and there was screaming and screaming and-" 

He touched her shoulder. "It's alright, you don't have to tell me." 

She looked up, a tear dribbling out of one silver eye and then sobbed as  
she collapsed into his arms, hugging him tightly around the stomach. 

Poor kid, Ash thought. "Anyway, I'm Ash and you don't have to worry about  
a thing-" 

"Pika chu," Pikachu said as he jumped down from the roof, finally  
catching up to him. He scampered over and jumped on to his shoulder as  
Ash released Chanelle from the hug. "Chu pikachu?" he asked curiously,  
indicating her. 

"Pikachu, this is Chanelle ... she's been stranded on this horrible  
island ever since it was frozen." 

Pikachu narrowed his blue eyes. "Pikapi." 

"Don't be silly, she's just a girl," Ash said with a shrug. "Now let's  
get back to Misty and Erika."  
  


  
  


"Weird how the persian just collapsed like that, almost like it just ran  
out of batteries," Erika said tiredly as she leaned on her staff for  
support. 

"But, where's Misty?" Ash asked, looking around the frozen park for the  
blue-cloaked woman he could just not get out from underneath his skin.  
She was like a burr that got caught in your clothes and stuck there  
forever. 

"I thought she went with you," Erika said, puzzled. She looked at  
Chanelle who was standing silently behind him with a frightened  
expression on her face. "Unless you traded her in for that girl you have  
now." 

"Erika, this is serious. I swear I told her to stay with you to help out  
with Persian," Ash said exasperated. 

Erika waved her hand at the unconscious pokemon. "I can take care of  
myself." 

"But didn't you just say it just fell over? You didn't exactly do  
anything." 

"Hey, it's the results that matter isn't it?" she replied with a shrug. 

"Pikapi, pipikachu!" Pikachu called out. 

Ash turned and ran over to where his pokemon was examining the frozen  
grassy ground. He crouched down to get a closer look. It looked like  
Misty's boot prints, where the blades of ice had been crushed. Looking   
at they way they were arranged, it seemed as if she had turned to walk   
back toward Erika, but then just stopped as if she had disappeared into   
thin air. "I don't like the looks of this," he said gravely. He leaned   
closer as he noticed a fine sheen of icy water clinging down upon the   
trampled icy grass. "Mist..." he stated. 

"What does that mean?" 

He looked up at the centre of the island at the high peaks of the frozen  
volcano. A watery vapour of steam had begun to rise from the top in an  
uncanny imitation of real lava as the beginnings of a dark-purple vortex  
began swirling around in the air. A slight rumble trembled along the  
ground. 

"It means we're in deep shit," he said. 

"Pikachu," Pikachu agreed.  
  


  
  


Misty blinked as she suddenly awoke, feeling like she had just arisen  
from a cold-as-death slumber. The first thing she realised was that the  
air around her was so cold, she was afraid her blood would start to  
freeze. That meant that the temperature was so severe that it would  
actually affect her even though her element was strong against ice. 

The ground she was laying on was also just as cold and so hard it was  
painful to her back. As her eyes regained their vision, she sat up and  
hugged herself with her arms. There was a freezing wind blowing, jerking  
her hair and her cloak around her like a flag caught in a hurricane. 

"So, Mistaria ... you have awakened." 

Misty rapidly stood up and almost slipped upon the sheer ice she was  
standing on. And then she saw just how grave her situation was. What she  
was standing on was what looked like a small flat iceberg floating upon a  
cold sea of liquid energy. The dark clouds above looked close enough to  
suggest that she was at a very high altitude. Around her, also floating  
on the freezing liquid were numerous icebergs like the one she was  
standing on and everything was surrounded by a blue arctic wall of rock  
which closed them off in a circle. The place looked vaguely familiar and  
she gasped as she realised that this was the exact place that Ash had  
fought Blaine for his Volcano badge all those years ago. On top of the  
fiery volcano itself. Except, now the volcano's lava was lethally cold  
instead of lethally hot, and the small platforms floating upon the lava  
were much lower than the high peaks Ash's charizard and Blaine's magmar  
had fought upon. To make things even worse, she noticed that a swirling  
purple cloud above them was beginning to reveal itself as the second  
Forbidden vortex. 

Misty looked back at who had spoken and saw Lorelei in her ice-blue  
cloak, her long purple-blue hair streaming behind her in the frozen wind.  
She was standing on one of the other many ice-platforms at the other side  
of the volcano, standing impossibly steady upon her ice-skates. Her  
sea-green eyes behind her small spectacles glowed fiercely, the glow so  
bright it completely encompassed her beautiful face. 

Lorelei then lifted her arms and the air seemed to grow even colder, cold  
enough that Misty thought her soul was freezing. 

"You think you can match up to me, Mistaria?" Her voice boomed and  
echoed within the walls of the volcano. 

"Mistress Lorelei, this is ridiculous!" Misty shouted over to her. "I  
never wanted to match up to you!" 

"You actions give the lie!" Lorelei shouted back. "You stole everything  
from me! Everything!" Her voice quieted to a whisper, hard to hear in the  
screaming of the wind. "Until I had nothing left but the cold..." Her  
eyes flashed and she ripped off her glasses and threw them into the  
freezing lava, although they froze up and shattered before they could  
even touch the cold liquid surface. A tear streamed down her cheek before  
it froze and was blown off her face by the wind. Underneath, she was  
almost naked save for a very short black mini-skirt and dress. "Well, now  
... I call for a Circle of Masters! Physical combat!" She lowered her  
raised arms in an abrupt gesture. "She who flees the circle or lies  
unconscious shall forfeit ... their life!" She grasped the shoulders of  
her icy cloak and threw it off behind her to be snatched by the violent  
wind and carried off into the darkening sky. The purple swirling vortex  
above them screamed as it snatched the cloak like a hungry mouth and  
shredded it to so many fragments of icy fabric. 

Misty narrowed her eyes as she summoned her power of Water as a buffer  
against the freezing coldness. Her form glowed bright blue as she too  
threw off her blue cloak to be snatched by the hungry wind, leaving her  
long sapphire-coloured elegant dress to flap around furiously. Ice-skates  
formed out of her boots and her height was raised a few inches. "Very  
well, you know I have to accept," she said gravely. She leaned to one  
side and ripped the end of her skirt off to leave more room to manoeuvre  
for her now-bare legs. 

Lorelei smiled a smile devoid of any warmth whatsoever. "I know."  
  


  
  


Before them stood the impossibly-tall volcano of Cinnabar Island. Ash   
was looking up and could just see the blue sparks of flaring Water and   
Ice energy flaring at the very top of the now-frozen mountain of cold.   
And above all was the swirling purpleness of the second Forbidden gate.   
His gaze drifted downward and rested upon the huge iron gates that were   
the entrance to this place of doom. It lay off to the right of the   
pools of flowing liquid blue energy that used to be the hot springs he   
had once bathed in so very long ago. 

"I still say you should have stayed behind to look for the others,  
Erika," he said without turning around. 

"Pika pika," Pikachu seconded from his shoulder. 

"Look, Misty's always come when I needed her, so why I can't I do the  
same for her?" she replied stubbornly. 

"You're just putting Jessie, James and Persian in needless danger," he  
indicated their unconscious bodies behind them being carried on the  
flower of Erika's Venusaur. 

"Saur!" the huge, green squat dinosaur-like pokemon with a large, wide  
flower on its back, agreed. 

"And Chanelle looks terrified," he indicated the girl who was sitting on  
the venusaur's shoulder with a scared expression on her face. 

Erika folded her arms. "Best friends come first." 

Ash sighed. "Okay, but-" 

The icy ground beneath their skates trembled. 

"An earthquake?" Erika inquired, looking down at the ground. 

"Worse than that," Ash said, nodding his chin in the direction of the  
cold springs flowing along the base of the volcano. Something huge and  
translucent was rising out of the pool of freezing liquid energy. 

"Oh, great, not *that* again," Erika said sliding backward a step and  
raising her dark wooden staff. 

"MASTER ASH," the massive Lapras made of ice boomed telepathically  
through the air as it rose out of the frozen springs. It was much too  
large to fit all the way through and so smashed its way upward through  
the floor of ice itself. "YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME." 

"Nessie!" Ash shouted as he skated forward. "I want answers! Why did you  
ever consent to become a Master Pokemon?" 

The huge lapras paused, its horned head looking down at him from above.  
"AFTER YOU ABANDONED ME, I GREW ATTACHED TO SOMEONE ELSE. IT WAS HER WISH  
THAT I BECOME SO." 

"You mean, Lorelei?" he asked. Then he frowned. "And I never abandoned  
you! I let you go free because I thought it was what you wanted!" 

"FORGIVE ME FOR SAYING SO, BUT YOU ARE A FOOL, MASTER ASH. YOU HAVE  
ABANDONED COUNTLESS POKEMON THROUGHOUT YOUR JOURNEY. DIDN'T YOU EVER  
REALISE THAT ABOVE ALL THEY WOULD WANT TO STAY WITH YOU NO MATTER WHAT?   
IT IS LIKE OFFERING BUT A CRUST OF BREAD TO A BEGGAR THEN SNATCHING AWAY   
THE LOAF WHEN THEY REACH FOR MORE." She looked down at the pikachu on   
his shoulder. "ABOVE ALL, ONLY YOUR FIRST POKEMON WAS SPARED FROM YOUR  
STUPIDITY." 

"I-I never knew you felt that way," Ash said, his throat tightening. But  
all those pokemon he had let go. Was this how they really felt? But it  
had always seemed like the right thing to do. Were his beliefs flawed? 

"AND NOW I CANNOT LET YOU PASS BECAUSE IT IS MISTRESS LORELEI'S WISH." 

"But, Misty's up there! You know her! How can you let her be murdered?" 

"IT IS MISTRESS LORELEI'S WISH," was all she said. "NOW LEAVE BEFORE I  
MUST RESORT TO VIOLENCE." 

Ash didn't know what to do. He just couldn't attack Nessie, it wouldn't  
feel right ... even if she was the Pokemon League's sixth Master Pokemon.  
But ... but Misty was in the fight of her life. He couldn't abandon her -  
he just couldn't! It would tear his soul apart just when he thought he  
had mended it. 

"Ashy-boy!" a throaty female voice suddenly shouted. "I finally found  
you!" 

He turned around to see a voluptuous violet-cloaked woman with long blue  
hair skating toward them from the direction of the city. "Duplica!" he  
called out in surprise. He spotted Junior and one of Bruno's trainers as  
well as Laselle and Giselle all skating toward them. 

"I'll distract her for you, now get up there and save your girlfriend!"  
Duplica said as she leaped into the air and began changing into a huge  
yellow bird with spiky wings. Electricity crackled around her form as  
the new zapdos took to the air. "ZAP!" she shouted in an amused voice  
from her razor-point orange beak. 

"WHAT?" Nessie cried as Duplica-Zapdos shot a massive jagged bolt of  
charged Thunder into her and she cried in pain, flinching as she   
unwillingly began to sink back into the cold springs. 

"Not so hard, Duplica, but thanks a lot!" Ash said as he crouched and  
formed a disc of black shadow beneath his feet. "Up we go, Pikachu!" he  
called out as they began to rise rapidly in the air to the top of the  
volcano. "By the way, she's not my girlfriend!" he said down to her. 

"ZAP! Get out of denial, Ash, the land of truth can be very rewarding!"  
Duplica-Zapdos replied as she zoomed around in the air and continued to  
keep Nessie busy with bolts of electricity. 

Erika, Junior, Laselle, Giselle and the rest of them ran past the  
battling pokemon to the huge iron door. "We'll go up the conventional  
way!" Erika shouted. "Meet you up there, Ash!"  
  


  
  


Where did she go? Misty thought frantically as she searched all around  
the volcanic arena with her eyes. Leaping from ice-platform to  
ice-platform as she skated around was beginning to tire her and already  
she was bleeding from numerous cuts on her arms and legs. Although she  
thought she had given about as good as she got so far - she was sure she  
had cut Lorelei in just as many places with kicks of her own razor-sharp  
ice-skates. 

Just as she guessed correctly, she leaped away from the platform she was  
currently on as Lorelei exploded from underneath, feet-first, with her  
razor-sharp ice-skates cutting through as an ice-pick shatters ice. In  
midair, she turned a half-twist, shaking off the cold lava from her body  
and landed upon another platform. 

Misty sucked in her breath as a splash of the freezing-molten liquid  
struck her in the forearm and immediately her skin began hardening to  
ice. It was only from hard thought and desperation that allowed her to  
gather enough Water energy in her body to melt it back to normal. 

"Too cold for you, Mistaria?" Lorelei asked as she shook her blue-purple  
mane of hair, to fully free it of the liquid freezing lava. "You should  
embrace it as do I, for feelings are not worth feeling." 

"You're wrong, Mistress Lorelei!" Misty shouted in an emotionally-pained  
voice. "Feelings are what make us human! You used to understand that ...  
to be cold and nothing else is nothing but a parody of death." 

"Ironic coming from you ... as you in turn were the one to teach me these  
values," Lorelei replied as she began leaping from iceberg to iceberg for  
another attack. The cuts along her bare skin that Misty had inflicted  
upon her seemed to not even slow her down. "You and *him*. Him  
especially! He stole a part of me when he left me behind to rot in the  
Pokemon League. Allowing yourself to feel opens up the possibility of  
being hurt. And hurt is inevitable in this immoral world!" 

"Him?" Misty asked in confusion as she prepared for Lorelei's assault.  
"Who are you talking about?" 

"I assume she's talking about me," a tight masculine voice called out  
over the wind. 

Misty turned and gasped in surprise as she saw Bruno standing upon one of  
the icy platforms, his maroon cloak billowing about his huge muscular  
body in the fierce wind of ice. 

Lorelei saw him and screamed. She abruptly stopped her charge with a  
snow-plough manoeuvre sending ice-shards flying from her skates. "You!   
You dare to show your face to me?" 

Bruno stayed deathly still upon his platform of ice. Abruptly, he broke  
down and covered his face with his hands. "I'm sorry, Lorelei ... but you  
seemed happy in the Pokemon League ... while I ... I couldn't bear what  
we had become; nothing but a body of over-powered people seeking to gain  
our own ends at the expense of others. We were nothing but a more  
powerful Team Rocket." 

Lorelei's sea-green eyes narrowed to glowing horizontal slits. "And you  
think I was? I was happy because of you! For once I had a family to call  
my own ... and yet with one 'moral' step you completely removed it from  
me." She turned her attention back to Misty. "Was she worth it, Bruno?  
Was it worth having an inferior version of myself by your side instead of  
me?" Her form abruptly became shrouded in an ice-blue freezing aura. "No  
matter what you answer, she will be naught but ice and I will shatter it  
like you shattered my heart." 

"No, she has absolutely nothing to do with any of us!" Bruno roared. "I   
don't know how you ever reached this insane conclusion that I left you  
for her. Leave her be, she is and always was Ashura's girl!" 

Suddenly, a dark form swooped up and over the crater wall of the volcano.  
A black-cloaked form riding on a disc of shadow. "I wouldn't put it quite  
that way, Bruno, but no one's turning Misty into an ice block! This is a  
family discussion, that I'd rather you left us out of!" 

"Ash!" Misty cried out in abject relief as he swooped toward her. 

"Misty! Jump!" he called out and she did so, right into his arms as they  
glided upward upon Ash's power of shadow. 

"She's escaping!" Lorelei screamed as she began to fire bolts of ice from  
her fists. 

Misty felt dizzy as Ash manoeuvred around in quick midair turns and loops  
to dodge the wild shots. 

"Stop that!" Bruno shouted as he began leaping from platform to platform  
towards her with big crunching sounds from his heavy boots. 

"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Lorelei said as she began to point  
her blazing fists at him. 

"Your husband!" Bruno roared as he jumped into a high tackle knocking  
her off her skates into a high parabolic arc until they landed upon  
another ice platform, Bruno pinning Lorelei on her back. Hissing in pain  
from the coldness seeping from her skin to his arms, he quickly lowered  
his head and kissed her. 

For a moment, she struggled, the flesh of lips feeling as cold and hard  
as ice, but then the faintest tinge of warmth began to pervade them.  
Lorelei burst out into tears and collapsed as Bruno hugged her in his hot  
embrace.  
  


  
  


Ash, with Pikachu on his shoulder, and Misty watched from above as they  
hovered upon Ash's disc of shadow. "Amazing how a kiss can solve so many  
problems," Ash said, shaking his head as he carefully rode both of them  
against the wind. 

Misty didn't answer. He turned his head to see what she was doing and  
found her staring at him with a strange expression on her face. Her blue  
eyes were bright with emotion and suddenly he felt warm as her arms  
wrapped around his side became a burning brand. Long locks of her  
crimson hair caressed his cheek like a feather upon soft down. 

His eyes lowered to her pert pink lips and he abruptly remembered what  
they tasted like ... like strawberries and cream. He had the sudden  
uncontrollable urge to test that memory ... and she too began leaning in  
close for a merging of lips... 

But a shrill, terrifying scream from above broke the spell and they  
looked up to find that the dark-purple vortex had grown even larger,  
large enough to swallow the volcano whole. Dark shadows of flapping  
shapes became visible from within, uncountable dots of blood-red eyes  
looking down at them in hunger as they waited patiently for freedom. 

"The Forbidden Gate is becoming fully open!" Lorelei's voice called from  
below. Her tone had grown considerably warmer - whatever Bruno had done  
had been more than completely successful. 

"How can we stop it?" Bruno asked quickly as they stood up. 

"Master Bruno, you're alright!" a new voice sounded from the far side of  
the top of the volcano. 

Ash looked down to see that the rest of them had finally climbed to the  
top through the stairway. Junior was standing upon the entrance ledge,  
holding on to the visor of his maroon cap to keep it from being blown  
away from the wind. Next to him were Erika, Giselle and Laselle. 

"Junior, what are you doing here?" Bruno yelled in surprised anger. 

"JT," Lorelei suddenly said softly. Then more loudly, "My JT?" Her  
sea-green eyes were wide as she stared at him. 

"JT?" Junior called out. "I remember when I was small, someone used to  
call me that!" His own green eyes widened. "No, there's no way!" 

"Lorelei!" Bruno shouted. 

Lorelei suddenly grasped her hands tightly against Bruno's shoulders.  
"How could you bring my son here?" she sobbed. "Now the gate is too far  
open, everyone here will die!" 

"Tell me how we can stop it!" Bruno asked again, this time more  
desperately. 

"MOM?" Junior yelled over the wind. "But-but if she's my mom, that means,  
Master Bruno ... Master Bruno..." 

"Is your father!" Lorelei completed. "Bruno how could you not tell him?" 

Bruno closed his eyes. "I-I couldn't. I just couldn't! He didn't deserve  
a father like me ... better to be an orphan than be the son of a  
heartless murderer!" 

"You're wrong!" Lorelei shouted. "Everyone deserves a family! Family is  
what keeps people together. Without them, the loneliness will lead to  
despair ... and with the despair, the bitter touch of complete coldness."  
Her green eyes had sunk to a dull glow at the remembrance of her  
feelings. "I can't let that happen," she suddenly whispered in a low  
voice. "I won't. I won't let it!" 

Bruno had to back away as she suddenly summoned such an immense amount of  
elemental power that the very air around her body began to freeze solid. 

"Lorelei, what are you doing?" Bruno said appalled. "You can't hold that  
much energy without it ripping you apart!" 

"Bruno," she said in a soft tone, tears freezing around her eyes. "You  
must know that I am a focal point holder. Three of the Elite Four were  
given the duty of acting as a conduit for each of the three towers to  
allow the Forbidden Gates to open. We holders are part of the keys to  
these gates. If all of us die, then the Prophecy of Armageddon will be  
stopped." 

"So Sabrina was telling the truth!" Erika shouted. 

"But-but," Bruno began, his eyes beginning to moisten. "That means ...  
NO!" he screamed in a voice full of pain and denial. "Not after we've  
just found each other again! Not after just remeeting your son!" 

"But it is because that JT - and you - are here that I must do this,"  
Lorelei said in a voice just louder than a breath. "My death and my final  
blast of power will slow down the destruction of this island enough for  
you to escape." She paused, her eyes beginning to glow even brighter,  
brighter than the whitest of stars. "Goodbye, Bruno ... my love... take  
care of JT for me -" She smiled bitter-sweetly. And then she was gone. 

All Bruno could do was let out a yell of complete anguish and loss.  
  


  
  


Seeming to shrill in pain as if it had taken a mortal blow, the massive  
swirling dark-purple vortex of death flared as if a thunderstorm had just  
begun within its dark heart. 

The pure white island of ice and its volcano underneath it began to shake  
underneath a massive upheaval of the sea and ground. Light which flared  
from the ice itself and seemed to light the island from the darkness,  
began to blink as it lost its source of power. 

Wind blew and hail struck. Air smelling of ozone and melting ice was  
everywhere around them. 

"Which way is the ship?" Ash shouted over the careening of the wind as he  
desperately steered his platform of floating shadow that was holding  
everyone up in the wildly shaking air. He had extended it, large enough   
to carry most of their companions, while Duplica in Pidgeot form, flying   
behind him with powerful beats of her wings, carried the rest that would   
not fit. The icy city below them was beginning to collapse within itself;  
houses, trees, buildings and everything was disintegrating as if the   
whole island was a sandcastle that had just been submerged within the   
sea. 

"It's at the south of the island, on the beach!" Giselle answered him as  
she yelled over the noise of destruction. "We better hurry and hope that  
Misty's sisters have gotten that ship fixed or we can all say good  
night!" 

A few desperate minutes later, Ash spotted the white pointed form of the  
ship far below them on the white beach. It looked like Misty's sisters  
had already begun to cast off. 

"Hey, they're not leaving us are they?" Laselle asked in sudden fear as  
she lay on her chest, clutching the shadow platform with her hands  
tightly. 

"No, they're just getting ready so that when we come, we can make a  
speedy getaway," Misty explained, still holding Ash's side. 

"Pidgeot!" Duplica-Pidgeot trilled. "Let's dive!" she cried as she   
lowered one wing and swooped down like a fighter jet. 

"W-Watch it!" Jessie said, who had now awoken from unconsciousness and  
seemed normal - normal for her - as she clung to Duplica-Pidgeot's  
brown-feathered back in fear. 

"I'm scared of heights!" James cried. 

"Oh, be quiet!" Duplica-Pidgeot trilled. "You're lucky I'm even giving  
you a ride!" 

Ash banked his disc of shadow and followed them down. 

Lily was waving at them from on top of the deck. "Like finally!" she  
shouted when she saw them descending. "We were becoming like totally  
worried!" 

Duplica-Pidgeot landed first with an elegant gliding of wings, although  
she deposited Jessie, James and Persian more than a little roughly upon  
the hard deck. 

"Ow!" they cried. 

"Sorry, an accident!" Duplica said innocently although the wicked tone in  
her voice gave the lie as she shifted back into human form. 

After that it was Ash's turn, and it was more than a little hard for him  
since upholding the Shadow levitation so large and for so long had  
completely tired him out. Pikachu as well, as he had been adding his  
power to his. As it was they were still a couple of feet in the air above  
the ship before, he could no longer maintain it and they all fell down  
with a thump in the wake of the sudden empty air. 

"Quick, below decks!" Lily said, helping everyone up. "We're going to  
have to submerge to get out of this one!" She indicated the island behind  
them as the ship sped away at full acceleration. She looked at Ash as he  
tiredly stood up and began following everyone down the hatch with Pikachu  
on his shoulder. She shook her head. "You know, places that go to hell  
seem to be quite common when you're around." 

"Tell me about it." 

After submerging, they managed to escape the destruction of Cinnabar  
Island. Onward, the ship turned its destination north to the Viridian  
Gulf. 

But it was a sombre mood that descended over the party of people within  
the ship. They were one step closer to their goal, but at what price. 

Bruno stayed locked in his rooms for the whole journey, while Junior  
refused to even speak. Even Erika seemed to fall in depression at the  
knowledge of her three Grass Trainers death. 

And unknown, behind in the cargo-hold, a stow-away plotted retribution.  
  


  
  


The cold air above the ruins of Cerulean City was dead calm. Gruesome  
animalistic howling sounded every so often interrupting the terrifying  
stillness which enveloped the land. Forgotten crumbling buildings lay  
throughout, seeming devoid of all life. Aside from the deadness of the  
ruins, by contrast the tall circular black tower that rose above the  
destruction was pulsing with dark-purple waves. It was from here that  
such appalling cries of inhumanness originated, or more precisely above  
it, the first vortex of the Forbidden. Which now seemed to be drifting to  
the west... 

Behind a toppled building, white light seemed to burst as something came  
into being. As it flared and gained solidity, it emerged into a slim  
white-cloaked figure. Its head was covered by its hood and the two  
glowing blue lights constrained within its shadows that were its eyes,  
slowly rotated their field of vision. 

Crumbled pieces of rocks and stone crunched underneath her white boots as  
Valdera began to search. It was around here somewhere. After all these  
years, she still remembered where it was, even if Cerulean City looked  
... slightly different. 

Strangely, a sense of homesickness came over her as she looked around at  
all the destroyed ruins of buildings and burnt trees and other ashes that  
used to be the plentiful plant life of the city. She was only seven years  
old when she decided that life was nothing but a stupid vessel to pass  
through before ultimately leading to its true goal - death. And so she  
had staged her death and run away... there were better things to do than  
suffer under the company of her stupid sisters. And oh, how she had hated  
Mistaria... and now if what she suspected was true, then life was worse  
than a vessel of death. Nothing but a bad joke. 

Something hissed among the broken stone bricks to her right, breaking her  
train of thought. A rattata the colour of the night, leaped out of a  
crevice and began to pounce toward her. Lazily, Valdera lifted one hand.  
Her fingers crackled as pure white lightning exploded forth in a  
devastating bolt of hot destruction. The rattata seemed to evaporate into  
red steam as the electricity streamed through its body and into a  
half-collapsed broken stone wall - which just exploded into a shower of  
molten lava upon contact. 

Stupid Forbidden. Lord Garick was indeed an idiot to use such  
uncontrollable creatures. If Ashura wasn't so stubborn and joined her,  
nothing would be able to stop the combined might of light and shadow.  
Masters such as they did not need outside power; they only needed each  
other. Thinking about that, she realised that already she missed him.  
Maybe she shouldn't have done what she did back at the Rebel base. It  
just let her crave for more. She quickly put it out of her mind as she  
continued on her way without a glance back. 

Finally, upon a large depression on the ground among the largest ruins of  
a building yet, she spotted the severed head of a large seel. The sign of  
the Cerulean City Gym. 

"So, you have come for answers," a voice said from behind her, eerie in  
its emotionless. 

Valdera turned around. A tall figure, taller than even her, in a cloak  
the colour of twilight stood there. Its head was also covered by its  
hood, making the features of its face invisible save for the eyes.  
"Sabrina," she stated in annoyance. "As if I wanted any of your  
psycho-masochistic babble." 

Sabrina continued without acknowledgement. "There's no escaping from it.  
Your blood is as entwined as the knots of a life's thread. As you have  
seen with Ashura, the prophecies are proving true. All dualities will  
become one eventually. That much is obvious." 

Valdera sucked in her breath. Something tickled on her cheek and she  
angrily wiped it away after realising it was a tear. Then she collapsed  
to her knees on the stony ground and looked at her slim white hands.  
"Prophecies can be broken!" she suddenly sobbed in denial. She looked up  
with a defiant look on her face. "And I will find a way to break it!" 

But no longer was Sabrina there. Only the dead air surrounding the  
equally dead city. 

Valdera brushed away a long lock of blonde hair away from her eye. It was  
time she and 'Misty' had a more serious encounter. 'Ash' could only  
belong to one sister ... her.  
  


*** End of Part 10 

_________________________________________________________________________ 

POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________ 

SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity 

Attack : Shadow Slice  
Type : Shadow / Fighting  


In blade form, a strike of the sword that can be launched over surprising  
distances to cut any substance known to man. 

_________________________________________________________________________ 

Notes: 

Ack. My fingers are about to fall off from the length of this fic. I  
think I beat my record... anyway, time for my world-famous notes! What do  
you mean you don't know about them? Start from Part 1 then! *grin* 

New Characters: Try to guess what each of the new characters (Ania,  
Triana, Colletra and Hikaru. Oh and Chanelle.) match up to from the  
gameboy game - answers at bottom ^_^;;. By the way, I didn't want to  
create even more new ones but I found describing them as "Erika's  
Trainers" or "Bruno's Trainers" got pretty old and required actual names.  
Although on second thought, I just killed most of them off anyway so  
maybe it didn't matter. 

On Ash's bow shooting skill: I chose two hundred yards because I just  
finished watching Guiness Prime time and it said the furthest someone  
could shoot an arrow with accuracy was one hundred yards. So naturally, I  
chose double for Ash *grin*. 

On Triverion: I've always been a big fan of Transformers where they would  
all join to make a big robot ^_^;;. Except this idea was based more on  
how it was done in the PSX game, Xenogears. 

On Lorelei: Sorry for being so corny, but I thought a kiss would fit for  
some reason. Kind of like Sleeping Beauty ... or Sleeping Insane-Woman. 

On Ice skating: Ain't it totally cool? That would be awesome if there  
really was a city of ice to skate around in ^_^. 

Anyway, as always tell me if I stuffed up this chapter or whether you  
loved it to pieces. And if I stuffed up, tell me where you think I did it  
so I can see if I can improve it. Thanks!  
  


Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey


	11. Regressions

  
Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of  
violence and some inappropriate language. 

*************************************************************************  


Pokemon Master 

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez. 

All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm 

Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions. 

************************************************************************* 

Part 11 - Regressions  
  


Near the jagged and rocky shoreline of the U-shaped Viridian Gulf, all  
that could be heard was the overwhelming sound of hard rain striking the  
ocean. As if the sheer amount of falling water would pulverise the mass  
of dark and violent tossing waves, the blue-black heavens above continued  
to let free its floodgates relentlessly. 

Even the dark spray ricocheting off the massive waves arose little before  
being disintegrated by the powerful bullet-like downpour. Fragments of  
razor-sharp rocks of the gulf's cliffs crumbled and fell to be swallowed  
up by the hungry ocean. 

In the midst of that black and wet turbulent body of water suddenly arose  
a pointed white ship, barely visible as it rode the high waves up and  
down, each second seeming to be its last before it crumbled like a paper  
boat - either by the violent waters or by the heavy downpour. But the  
ship's plating seemed to weather the assault and it safely survived each  
jerking jar of the huge waves and the continuous rain. Darkness caused by  
the total absence of natural light was barely chased away by the bow's  
overhead spotlights. 

After carefully lowering the hood of his cloak over his head and  
adjusting the straps of his small backpack, Ash, below decks, slammed the  
ship's hatchway open, and with a slight exhalation of breath, sprang up  
into the cold, wet night. Immediately a torrent of violent rain washed  
over him and he quickly grasped on to a nearby mast for support, the  
steel beneath his black fingerless gloves slippery and wet. 

Sensing a sudden large wave rather than seeing it in the extremely poor  
visibility, Ash rolled with the deck's abrupt rising and falling as it  
was jerked about like an out-of-control roller coaster. There was a roar  
as water collided against the ship's side and exploded over him, almost  
forcing him to lose his grip and wash him away into the ocean. But he  
retained his hold and shook his head, jerking the drops of salty water  
from his eyes that had found their way into the hood of his cloak. 

"Quick, before the next wave hits!" he shouted behind himself, above the  
wailing and screaming of the wind and rain. He turned his attention back  
to the hatchway which had been almost flooded with water, and watched  
attentively as the rest of the group they had designated to come ashore  
climbed their way out. 

Misty and Duplica came out first, both dressed in their hooded cloaks to  
ward off the rain. Deep puddles of water splashed beneath their boots as  
they took their positions atop the deck. 

A slight pause later, Duplica just let go of the handhold and dived over  
the starboard railing. Her shape melted as she shifted into an elegant  
and long-necked, blue lapras and splashed into the sea. Her wide flippers  
moved quickly to keep her afloat and beside the ship. "Hurry!" she said  
telepathically, so that her voice seemed to come from within the minds of  
whoever she talked to. "The ship won't be able to take much more beating  
staying on the surface like this." 

Bruno was next out of the hatch. "Go, go, go!" he yelled in a tight  
voice. Ash could see that he still showed a tinge of pain from all that  
he had lost. The maroon-cloaked, hugely-muscled man leaped off the edge  
and into the sea to grab on to Duplica-Lapras' side, followed closely by  
the green-cloaked Erika who also dived down but with more expertise. 

Finally, two rain-coated figures prepared to jump over the side as  
well as the white, panther-like persian wearing a thin waterproof cat-  
jacket. Despite this being decided as a Master-only operation, Jessie and  
James had managed to convince them that they should come along.  
Apparently they wanted revenge on Butch and Cassidy for some reason or  
other. 

"Oh, I hate swimming!" James exclaimed, his voice just barely audible  
over the sound of the wind and waves as he held the hood of his  
rain-coat over his blue hair steady with one hand. 

Jessie just forcefully pushed him over the edge. "Just get in there,  
fool, and grab on to that lapras!" She jumped in after him with Persian  
at her back. 

When they had gone, Misty looked at him. "After you," she said with a  
flourish. Even though her face was invisible under the darkness of her  
cowl, he could sense an ironic smile on her lips. 

He was about to answer when a slight prickling of his senses touched the  
back of his mind and he scanned the deck alertly. 

"Ow!" Misty was suddenly clutching her upper left shoulder with her right  
hand. 

"What is it?" Ash asked, his eyes narrowing as he searched for what he  
had felt. He thought he saw a shadow fly off the edge of the ship but he  
wasn't sure. Immediately, he leaped across the deck for a look at where  
he thought he saw the shape jump from. But there was nothing there save  
for more heaving black waves and hard rain. He turned back to her. 

"Nothing. I think it was just a mosquito or something," she said as she  
looked within the fold of her cloak. She stumbled a little as the deck  
rolled to the side and she ripped her arm away from her shoulder.  
"Anyway, we got more important things to worry about! I can barely still  
see them out there. Let's go!" She stepped back and then took a running  
dive off the side of the ship. Graceful as only a professional diver  
could be, she cut into the ocean without even a hint of a splash. 

Pulling his hood further down against his face, Ash stepped to follow.  
"Ready, Pikachu?" he said, directing his voice at the top of his backpack  
where his pokemon was still riding inside. 

"Pii." 

"Let's go then." He launched himself over the railing with a quick leap  
just as another huge wave struck the ship and actually forced it to  
submerge, sinking it deep within the ocean's depths.  
  


  
  


Misty had barely reached Duplica's side and grasped on to the side of  
her grooved back, like the others were doing, when the churning water  
behind them suddenly began to get sucked into a massive wave. It grew  
quickly to tower high over their heads. "Hold your breath everyone!" she  
shouted as she treaded closer to get a better grasp. 

"Better listen to the expert," Jessie said, eyes wide as she stared up at  
the outsized current of water about to crash over their heads. 

And then everything was black and wet and there was a roaring in Misty's  
ears as what felt like a slab of concrete seemed to smash itself over her  
head and upper shoulders. Underwater, bubbles fizzed in front of the  
darkness in her eyes and she almost lost her grip on Duplica's flank. But  
just as suddenly as the wave had crashed down, it was abruptly gone and  
she was breathing and coughing and spitting out sea-water as she exploded  
upward. Even though she was a good swimmer, the hard water still managed  
to find its way through her defences. Her eyes stung as she blinked and  
regained her vision. "Everyone okay?" she asked out loud. She desperately  
checked to see if all of them had survived the submerging. 

"Ugh!" Erika sputtered as she clung on to Duplica's opposite side with  
one arm. "I think I swallowed a gallon of ocean." 

Jessie, James and Persian were treading water nearby - all of them  
seeming to be firmly attached to one another - with Jessie the one who  
was actually holding on to Duplica for support. 

"My fur's all wet," Persian growled in complaint. 

"We're going to drown!" was all James said. 

Jessie bopped him on the head with her free hand. "Stop pulling my hair!" 

Bruno was just silent as he leaned on Duplica's flank and treaded water  
almost lethargically, although he did give her a nod of okay. 

However, a tight feeling had invaded Misty's throat. Ash was nowhere to  
be seen. "Where's Ash?" she shouted out, her voice hoarse. Had he made it  
off the ship? There was something that had attracted his attention just  
before she had dived into the ocean. Uncaringly, she threw her sodden  
hood back for greater visibility, although it meant letting the hard rain  
pound over her now-unprotected head. "Ash!" she continued to cry out as  
she wiped sodden strands of long red hair from out of her eyes. She knew  
she shouldn't be this worried about him - it made suggestions about  
herself that she didn't want to face right now - but she couldn't deny  
her concern. 

"Over there!" Duplica-Lapras' voice projected into her mind as the  
woman-turned-pokemon pointed her head in an easterly direction. Misty  
followed her gaze and saw a black shape ride a huge, hilly wave up and  
down in the near distance. At the exit of the wave, the figure began to  
move his arms and swim freestyle toward them. The rain falling all around  
them and the darkness threatened to rend everything invisible despite her  
better-than-average night-vision. 

"I think that's him!" Misty shouted in relief. She lightly slapped  
Duplica's spiny back. "Move it Duplica!" 

Duplica-Lapras swivelled her head to look at her briefly and snorted in  
playful indignation. "Watch it sister, or I'll report you to the cruelty  
to pokemon association!" But she began to stroke all four of her wide  
flippers to powerfully propel all of them toward Ash. 

Unfortunately, the current was against them - the waves destined for the  
rocky cliffs of the Viridian Gulf - while Ash was out to sea. Every time  
Duplica actually began to gain some lee-way against the powerful waves,  
they were just pushed backward even more. And despite the powerful  
strokes Ash was using to swim over to them, it actually seemed like he  
was only swimming on the spot like a bizarre version of an aquatic  
treadmill. 

Suddenly, Misty sensed multiple alien signatures of water-based pokemon  
all around them. "Wait! Something's wrong!" Normally she could tell  
exactly what species a Water Pokemon was if it was anywhere in her  
vicinity, but these ... these just felt wrong. 

Even Duplica sensed it. "Forbidden Pokemon! We're surrounded!" Her eyes  
immediately flared like bright yellow spotlights, brightening up the  
black night and improving the visibility around them. 

Surprisingly, James turned serious, and began to look all around the  
tossing waves alertly. In one hand, he abruptly flashed one of his sai  
knives and spun it around his finger. "Careful, they're underwater!" 

Jessie also produced a knife and searched around the water they were  
treading in. "I just hope they're not gyarados," she said with some  
remembered dread. 

"Over there!" Bruno shouted, his rust-coloured eyes flaring within his  
sodden hood as he pointed to the waves behind Ash's back in the distance.  
In horror Misty was just able to spot a sharp, shark-like fin streaming  
in toward Ash's rear. It almost blended in to the black waves of the  
ocean as it headed toward its target. Then more and more fins began  
emerging to the surface around it - all of them heading toward Ash. 

"Misty, watch out!" Erika screamed. Misty jerked her attention back just  
as something dark flashed in the water to the side unexpectedly. A huge  
gaping black mouth full of sharp, needle-point teeth exploded out toward  
her with a violent splashing that sent a huge geyser of water upward. 

Rapidly, she let go of Duplica's flank to leave both arms free and kicked  
off to the side, causing the mouth full of sharp teeth to narrowly miss  
biting her legs off. At the failed attack, it gnashed angrily in the  
water and turned to follow, but then stopped and hissed in pain as a sai  
knife found a home in its blaring red eye on the side of its head. Black  
blood gushed out of the wound and steamed as it fountained around into  
the water. 

"Nice throw," Persian growled. 

"But that was one of my favourite knives," James said a little sadly. 

However the knife only seemed to slow it down and it continued to thrash  
its way toward her. Calmly, Misty glided away backward, kicking her feet  
to propel her as she clasped her hands together out in front. Going from  
what Ash had said earlier, this pokemon would probably be one of the ones  
who could resurrect itself. She concentrated on dropping her aura's  
temperature. 

It was closer now. "Misty do something or I will!" Erika said in sudden  
worry. 

Cold, think cold... she thrust her clasped hands outward, palms  
outstretched. "Now!" Her hands fogged white, then all at once a  
spear of sub-zero energy exploded forth in a tightly-controlled beam of  
ice. It shot across the surface of the water toward her target, icing up  
a whole trench of ocean in its wake. The thing that was not a seaking  
roared as the beam flew through it, freezing it completely solid and  
immobile. 

"Good thinking," Erika congratulated her. 

But then even more fins began emerging from the surface of the ocean  
around them. Red eyes gleamed at them from beneath the churning waters.  
Although Misty was dismayed to learn that however many Forbidden Seaking  
things were around them, there were even more of them gaining on Ash as  
he tried to swim over to them in the near distance. 

"There's too many!" Bruno shouted as he powerfully punched one of them in  
the head, smashing it back and breaking off its horn. "We'll have to fall  
back to the cliffs and climb ashore as soon as possible or we'll be  
overrun!" 

Misty wiped her rain-wettened hair from her eyes again. "What about Ash?" 

"He can take care of himself! Duplica, move it! We're not making any  
headway against this current anyway!" 

Duplica-Lapras looked back worriedly. "I-I don't know..." 

Misty removed the black star-shaped badge from the front of her cloak and  
held it up in her right hand as she treaded water. "Don't worry, Duplica,  
I'll get him. Starmos, let's go!" She threw the badge out in front of her  
whereupon it enlarged into her six-foot-wide, black starfish pokemon. She  
dived forward, dodging another one of the Forbidden Seaking's attempts to  
bite her in two, and landed chest-first on her pokemon's back - upon the  
red jewel - and carefully held on so as not to cut herself to ribbons on  
its ten razor-sharp points. 

Riding it like a bodyboard, Starmos propelled both of them along with  
three jets of water which it shot out of its back limbs. Another seaking  
thing appeared in front of them, but Misty directed Starmos to ride a  
nearby wave and they used it to jump over with a fountain of expelled  
water. They landed smoothly on the other side and surfed and skipped  
along the waves toward Ash like a thrown rock upon a lake. 

Ash was still swimming on the spot when he spotted her, arms methodically  
cutting the water, but getting him absolutely nowhere. He looked a bit  
embarrassed. "I really thought I was a better swimmer than this," he  
said a bit sheepish. 

"Pika," Pikachu agreed, having stuck his small head through the opening  
in the top of Ash's backpack. 

"Huh, you can say a lot Pikachu, you just ride on my back," he said in  
a disgusted tone. 

"It's because of the current heading out to sea," Misty told him as she  
leaned to the side, getting prepared to intercept him and pull him up as  
she passed. 

Just then, from the waves behind Ash, exploded the head of one of the  
Forbidden, its long black horn aiming to impale him through the head. 

"Ash, dive!" Misty yelled as she pulled Starmos up vertical with a  
huge splash. Then she let go and launched it forward with a kick of her  
feet. "Starmos, Ice Slice!" she ordered as she backflipped to dive back  
into the water. 

"Woah!" Ash said as Starmos rocketed forward along the surface of the  
water and spun into a deadly-sharp shuriken. He dived and it passed over  
him with a slashing of the waves. Then an arctic glow surrounded its  
blurred form as it shot through the attacking Forbidden Pokemon,  
exploding it into two bloody chunks which then froze solid. The hardened  
pieces of the body then splashed back into the water and floated like  
oddly-shaped ice-cubes. 

Starmos then banked as it returned to her in a wide arc with a splashing  
of water, cutting and freezing solid yet another dark seaking. As it  
passed by her, she leapt back on to bodysurf back to Ash and Pikachu who  
had then resurfaced with a gasping of air. 

"Quick!" Misty said as she leaned over again and this time managed to  
grab on to Ash's hand and pull him aboard. She made room for him as he  
clung on Starmos' right side but almost slipped off when it banked again  
to head back to Duplica and the others who were swimming toward shore. 

Another huge wave rose up by their left side like a rising wall of surf.  
Misty tilted Starmos into the steepening inclination and yelled, "Hang  
on!" 

Ash clung on tighter. "I hope you know what you're doing!" 

"Chu!" Pikachu mirrored. 

Misty rocked Starmos to the side then shot them all into the wave,  
spiralling smoothly upside-down then right-way-up again. "No problem!  
It's only water!" 

A spiny black shape dived out of the wave above them and Misty was just  
able to corkscrew them out of the way. 

Ash shook his head. "I have no problem with that. Just with whatever's in  
it!"  
  


  
  


Meanwhile, Duplica glided her fins along the water and looked up high at  
the seemingly-impossible-to-scale cliffs. It was about thirty feet high  
with blade-like ledges scattered all along its vertical face. All  
throughout, this was what the Viridian Gulf was made up of - cliffs in a  
u-shaped formation, with sheer rock-faces that could so easily cut any  
unwary climber to ribbons. 

A wave behind threatened to smash them into the razor-sharp rocks in  
front of her, but she managed to keep them anchored relatively still with  
powerful pushes of her flippers. The rain was still pounding from above  
and making the water surrounding them resemble a well-used pin-cushion.  
Although it did seem to have quietened down a bit now, the sound of the  
rain dropping to the level of what was like background static. 

"So what are we supposed to do now?" James asked as he also looked up the  
cliff, wet blue hair hanging all around his pale face. His raincoat hood  
had been torn off by the violence of the storm. Jessie swam by his side,  
hood also removed, water-darkened red hair hanging around her face in  
wisps while her long ponytail floated in the water behind her neck. 

"Ash said that he'd be the one to take care of it," Bruno replied as he  
peeled his own sodden hood off his head and smoothed his wet brown hair  
back - now not so spiky since he was soaked. 

"Oh that's just great!" Jessie said, her dark-blue eyes narrowing in  
annoyance. "Why couldn't one of you have been left behind instead of  
him?" 

Erika's eyes flashed green at that comment. "You're lucky we're even  
bringing you with us, 'Team Rocket'." 

Jessie turned around to glare back at her. "You want to start something  
with me, grass girl?" 

"I'd be happy to oblige," Erika replied angrily as she raised a fist out  
of the water and a golden glow surrounded it. 

Jessie smirked. "Oh, make me!" 

"Everyone, please!" Duplica interrupted. "We have enough to worry about  
without us fighting among ourselves, now we just have to wait for- woah!" 

A huge wave cut her off in mid-sentence as it splashed down over them  
with the force of a jackhammer. When it subsided, Ash, Misty and Pikachu  
were there next to them looking exhausted and wet as they lay on Misty's  
Starmos. 

"Finally," Persian growled, as he let go of Duplica's side - to her  
relief; those claws were sharp! - and doggy-paddled over to them. 

Ash slid off Starmos back into the water. Treading water, he unhooded  
himself and let his wet black hair blow around in the wind. "Now, just  
follow my lead!" He lifted one arm up and his black pikachu climbed up  
it. With a sudden crack of thunder which startled everyone, it reformed  
into his long, slightly-curved katana blade, its black colour almost  
camouflaging it completely in the night. "Alley Oop!" he yelled as he  
rapidly jerked his arm backward, then threw it point-first high up the  
cliff. From the bottom of its hilt trailed a long thin rope of what  
looked like black electricity. When the sword was at the top of the  
cliff, gravity then pulled it down to secure itself into the rock with a  
solid thunk that they could even hear from down below. 

"Let's go!" Ash said as he tested the rope with a few tugs, then leaped  
on to it and began pulling himself up hand over hand. His sodden black  
cloak dripped water profusely until a dark glow surrounded his form and  
then it was just suddenly dry. 

"Are you sure that's safe?" Misty said hesitantly as she shrunk her star  
pokemon back into a badge and pinned it to her blue cloak. "I mean ...  
that rope is made of electricity ... and we're treading in water. I know  
all about electricity and water." 

Ash looked down at her. "It's safe. As long as I hold on to it first -  
which is what I'm doing now - the rope is sufficiently grounded for  
anyone else to follow me." 

"And what if you fall off while we're all climbing it?" Bruno asked  
with more than a hint of doubt. 

The rope had begun to swing in the wind, causing Ash to rock back and  
forth dangerously, his boots trailing in the water. "I won't fall off." 

"But what if you do?" 

Ash paused. Then startlingly, he lifted an arm with the speed of a  
striking snake and exploded a bolt of dark lightning down at them. For a  
moment, Duplica almost thought that he was attacking *them*, until she  
realised that he had actually just disintegrated a Forbidden Pokemon  
behind them which had just been about to attack. 

His black-gloved hand still smoking, Ash just shrugged and continued to  
pull himself up. "How's your resistance to electricity?"  
  


  
  


The heavy storm above was wreaking havoc to the underwater ocean  
currents. So much so, that the submarine-capable white ship was being  
thrown around like an aircraft flying in severe turbulence. Visibility  
was also at a frighteningly low level - the water seeming to have been  
stained an ebony as black as the eternal night above them. If it weren't  
for the basic radar capability of the Waterflower, they probably would  
have been dashed against the rocks of the Viridian Gulf already. 

Within a darkened room inside the underwater ship, a white-coated man  
with glasses worked almost silently. Clack, clack, clack. His fingers  
danced along the keyboard. Green writing flashed on the display. No, not  
what he wanted. He had to find it, had to. The floor shook as what  
sounded like thunder rumbled outside. He almost slipped from his chair at  
the abrupt shaking. Pain flared within his sprained ankle, but he never  
lost concentration. 

And still the voice chanted within his mind. I can kill him for you. Kill  
him. Destroy all the obstacles between you what you want most. Kill him.  
Kill everyone. It was a mistake for him not to watch over me. He's crazy.  
You would be serving the world to allow me to get rid of him for you.  
It's so dark in here. You want her. I know you want her. I can make that  
happen. They're all bitches. They deserve whatever they get. Just release  
me. Release me. 

The voice went on. 

And then he found it. Found what he had been looking for. He adjusted his  
glasses and smoothed the sweat from his palms with a wipe on his  
lab-coat. 

"Combination accessed," the female-sounding computer voice said softly. 

Release me... RELEASE ME.  
  


  
  


The floor and walls of the chamber shook yet again as if some kind of  
psycho dentist was drilling on to the hull of the Waterflower. A  
complete maniac of a dentist, Laselle decided, teeth chattering, as she  
hung on to a wall strap with all her might. After a while, the shaking  
subsided to the more familiar vibrations of normal underwater currents  
and she let go with a sigh of relief. 

She looked over to Junior who was lying on his bed with a frighteningly  
blank expression on his face. He was staring up at the ceiling with  
glassy green eyes. "You okay?" she asked worriedly. She had just entered  
to check up on him before the ship's shaking had interrupted her. Junior  
had been holed up in his room ever since the fall of Cinnabar and hadn't  
spoken a word since then either. 

He didn't answer. Laselle shook her head as she stepped over to the side  
table and picked up his cap which had been resting upon it, along with  
three poke-balls. She spun the cap around her finger. She supposed if she  
had thought she was an orphan and then found her mom only to lose her  
again, she would have been feeling much the same. It was bad enough when  
her own parents had died... 

She looked at him again and gave a slight smile. "C'mon, JT. At least you  
still have your father. And with such powerful parentage, maybe some of  
their strength may have gotten passed down to you." 

He closed his eyes then opened them. "Don't call me JT," he said,  
breaking his silence. 

"Hey, you're talking!" Laselle said with a lopsided smile. 

Junior continued without acknowledgement. "As for Master Bruno..." His  
voice tightened in anger. "My father... what a joke." 

"What do you mean?" she asked a little warily as she played with the  
sleeves of the green jumper she was wearing. 

"He was never a father to me. One thing I don't understand is why should  
he have taken me from Mom if he was just going to deny me anyway?" 

Laselle placed his hat back on to the table. "All I know is that he does  
care about you. I've seen it." 

Junior grunted. "Uh huh. And first chance he gets, he splits." He closed  
his eyes and fell back to silence. 

Laselle was about to say more when suddenly everything began shaking  
wildly again with the sound of rumbling thunder. She grabbed on to the  
hand-support and held tight. Thinking that it was just ordinary,  
underwater currents again, she was surprised when the sound of an abrupt  
explosion somewhere outside mingled in with the commotion. 

A feminine computerised voice blared on the intercom. "SECURITY ROOM  
LEVEL ONE BREACHED." 

"Sounds like trouble!" she exclaimed as she let go of the hand-hold and  
desperately tried to balance over to the door on the shaking ground. She  
looked back to see if Junior was coming. He wasn't. "Junior!" No  
response. "Fine then!" She wrenched the door open and slipped outside.  
  


  
  


The room was clouded with smoke as inside the white-coated man with  
glasses and brown hair looked around intently. Various lights blinked on  
and off on the various displays all along the walls. Then he saw the  
large wall-high safe. He walked over to it and punched in a code on the  
touch pad on a panel on its side. There was a click as it opened. 

He wrenched the large safe door open with a creaking of metal. There.  
There it was. He looked upon the ball seeming to be made of shadow  
pulsing within. A construct of that monster. It lay secured on a  
raised cone-shaped holder. 

Release me. 

He reached over to pick it up. It felt cold within his palm. Like a  
sphere of dry ice yet with no solidity to it. 

"It's that Joe guy," someone shouted. "What the hell do you think you're  
doing?" 

He turned around to see two of Master Bruno's Fight Trainers standing at  
the door. I'm sorry, he thought to himself. But I'm doing this for  
everyone. He threw the ball at the ground between them. It shattered open  
like a dissipating shadow. Brown energy flared, exploded, and began  
reforming itself into a tall humanoid figure with a cloud of steam. 

"Damn!" the other Fight Trainer cursed. "He's freeing Brock! You go get  
help!" His companion quickly left to do just that, as he wrenched a  
poke-ball from a fold within his uniform and threw it. "Go, Rhyhorn!" The  
ball split, releasing its energy into the powerful, rock-armoured pokemon  
with four legs and a single thick horn upon its nose. 

It was too late. A long brown cloak flapped once as the six-foot-seven,  
heavily muscled Master of Rock finished reforming. Fiercely glowing eyes  
like narrow slits flashed under dark-brown hair worn in long spikes. 

"Rhyhorn, Horn Drill!" Immediately, the charging pokemon's horn began to  
spin rapidly within its skull just as it leaped up to the attack. 

A smirk twisted Brock's lips as he threw folds of his cloak back to free  
his arms. Instantaneously, the skin along them began to crackle as they  
turned to grey-tinged rock. By the time the rhyhorn had reached him, they  
were completely transmorphed. Then calmly and almost without effort, he  
just abruptly stopped the powerful charge by grasping on to its  
shoulders as it rose to impale him. The strike of rock against rock was  
violently loud as it echoed all along the metallic walls of the chamber. 

"Pathetic," Brock murmured. He looked up at the Fight Trainer as he  
easily held the Rhyhorn's revolving horn at bay. "You haven't been  
training this Rock Pokemon well at all." He looked back down at it and  
his eyes flashed an ugly brown. "Best to put it out of its misery..." 

The Fight Trainer gasped in shock as Brock's rocky fists twisted and  
there was a huge snap as he viciously snapped the Rhyhorn's neck to the  
side. Bits of rock and dust crumbled from the destroyed neck. 

"And you too!" Brock yelled, brown cloak flapping as he threw the severed  
head with its still-spinning horn directly at him. The Fight Trainer  
screamed in horrified agony as the horn sank into his chest and drilled  
through his heart with a wet grinding sound and a splatter of bright  
blood. The horn was still drilling through his chest as he took a drunken  
step backward then collapsed against the wall and finally lay still. 

Joe closed his eyes against the carnage. The end justified the means. It  
was all he could think of. 

"So you are the one who freed me." 

Joe opened his eyes and he felt his heart speed up in fear. For a moment  
his throat felt too tight to speak. Then he realised that Brock wouldn't  
hurt him. They were allies now after all. "Y-Yes, Master Brock." 

He took a step closer, his heavy boot seeming to shake the ground.  
Despite the conclusions that Joe had come to earlier, he was still  
warily afraid. "WHERE ARE ASH AND MISTY?" 

"H-He's-" 

Someone screamed, cutting him off, and he looked over to the open  
doorway. It was a girl with long brown-black hair wearing a green jumper  
and a skirt. He recognised her as Laselle, Giselle's little sister and  
formerly one of Erika's Grass Trainers. At her shoulder was hovering a  
strange black-coloured butterfree. She had just run into the room and was  
now staring horrified at the dead trainer laying against the wall and  
floor with the rhyhorn's severed head, which was still drilling through  
his body and was now making screeching noises as it tore at the metallic  
floor underneath. 

Brock turned, his eyes flashing at the intrusion. "A female," he said, a  
scowl twisting his lips. He lifted his rocky arms, palms glowing darkly. 

Joe paled. Not Giselle's sister! "No, Master, please don't!" 

Brock glanced at him for a second but then returned his gaze back to the  
young girl who stood as if paralysed, looking at the dead man. "She looks  
familiar," he mused darkly. "Ah! She's the sister of that bitch you're so  
enamoured of... I'm going to enjoy this." He began to step forward, brown  
cloak rippling over his muscular frame, the folds gliding behind him. 

Laselle seemed to snap out of whatever shock she had been in.  
"Butterfree, Psychic!" 

"Free!" A blue beam of energy shot forth from her flying pokemon directly  
at Brock. 

"Weak!" Brock yelled as he continued forward, arm outstretched to knock  
it away. Therefore he was absolutely surprised when the Psychic bolt of  
power struck his arm and propelled him powerfully backward, tumbling on  
to his back before he collided into the metallic wall of the room and  
created a massive dent in it. Arm smoking, he looked up, slitted eyes  
flashing an ugly brown as he stared at the black butterfree. 

"Free," the butterfree said hesitantly. 

"YOU!" Brock yelled. 

"Butterfree, Stun Spore!" Laselle ordered. 

But strangely, her pokemon flapped its wings and flew away back into the  
corridor she had come from. 

"Butterfree! Where are you going!" 

Brock chuckled evilly as he pushed himself to one knee and then stood up  
to his full massive height. "Little girl, you don't know what you're  
dealing with ... those who meddle with power ... will become  
overpowered." 

Laselle seemed to freeze up, absolutely frightened as the Rock Master  
slowly approached. 

"You simpering females sicken me," Brock growled. 

"Master Brock, please don't!" Joe yelled as he ran forward and grabbed on  
to his arm. 

He didn't spare him a glance. "WHERE ARE ASH AND MISTY?" 

"Master ... they-they swam ashore to the Viridian Gulf ... they're  
heading to Indigo Plateau and the Palace of the Elite Four..." 

"Good. I guess I don't need you anymore." He grunted as he transformed  
his rocky arm into a sharp spear and then turned around to impale Joe  
through the chest with it in a burst of blood. Joe screamed a gurgling  
death cry as crimson shot forth from his mouth. Then Brock jerked his  
spear-shaped arm from him with a splatter, almost ripping the dead man in  
two, and roughly kicked the pieces away. 

"Like, holy shit!" Daisy cried as she skidded into the room beside  
Laselle, blonde hair mussed up in her run. 

"This is totally bad," Lily said as she also ran inside with her other  
sister, Violet, in tow. 

Brock turned at the intrusion and smiled thinly. He morphed his arm back  
to normal and with a hard jerk, straightened out his brown cloak. "More  
females to play with," he growled, wiping the blood off his arm with a  
fold of the mantle. 

"Jerk!" Daisy yelled as she removed a white and yellow flower decoration  
from her hair. She threw it at Brock's feet and it exploded in a cloud of  
fog and mist. 

Brock coughed as he covered his nose. "BITCH!" 

Lily smoothed her long dark-pink hair back and raised her arms to the  
sides. "Quickly sisters! Link hands!" 

Daisy and Violet each grabbed one of her hands and an arctic-blue glow  
surrounded them. An unnatural breeze began to stir and their pink, blue  
and blonde hair each respectively began floating high in the air as the  
power of water coursed through them. 

"Misty's air-headed sisters," Brock growled as he recognised them.  
"Holding hands to pray for your lives?" 

"I don't totally think so!" Daisy shouted. "Now, sisters! AURORA BEAM!"  
She and Violet pointed their free hands at the Rock Master and a surge of  
bright rainbow-coloured energy washed forth in a wave of watery  
destruction. 

Brock yelled as he crossed his arms out in front of him and desperately  
tried to hold himself against it. But a second later, his thick boots  
lost their hold upon the metallic floor and he was powerfully smashed  
back like a small yacht washed away by a tidal wave. The already-dented  
wall gave way at his collision into it and he was smashed through more  
bits of metal and machinery until he was expelled out into the ocean. 

"WARNING! WARNING!" the female computer voice blared on the intercom.  
"HULL INTEGRITY BREACHED." 

The ship groaned at the punishment and ocean water began surging in to  
the room as if a huge dam had burst. The roar of the water was comparable  
to the sound of a huge waterfall. 

"Fall back!" Daisy yelled as she began dragging Laselle with her out into  
the corridor with her sisters following. "Emergency shut down the western  
wing before we get flooded enough to sink!" 

"Got it, sis!" Lily shouted as she began running toward the bridge, pink  
hair floating behind her at the speed she was running. 

Water tinged with red flowed out into the hallway by their feet until  
Violet opened a small control-box on the corridor wall and smashed it  
with her palm. Thick steel walls rapidly hissed and then shut the doorway  
off with a clang, stopping more water from escaping out of the room and  
into the rest of the ship. 

"I hope we get through this," Daisy said as she worriedly smoothed her  
blonde hair back.  
  


  
  


West of Viridian Forest, all was silent, save for the light crunching  
sounds of boots against dried leaves and the gentle patter of rain upon  
vegetation. Shadows danced against the trunks of thin trees as a group of  
seven people and a large persian trudged north in single file, the one  
in the lead with a dark pikachu sitting on his left shoulder and emitting  
a faint light; just enough to allow visibility through the blackness of  
the artificial night for a radius of about half a dozen feet. Overhead,  
dark swirling clouds dominated the sky, although it now seemed as if the  
violent storm had just about died down and was swiftly returning to what  
passed as normal in recent days. 

Walking in third place, just behind Ash and Misty, Duplica brought the  
hood of her violet cloak lower over her head so that the edge of it was  
about level with her eyes. Annoyingly, droplets of water dripped from it  
so that they fell in front of her face, slightly obscuring her vision.  
"Ash, how long do you think till we get to Indigo Plateau?" She was  
tired, wet, cold and hungry. And the forest around here gave her  
unpleasant memories... 

Features cast in shadow from his hooded cloak, Ash took a brief look back  
at her, but continued on at the same speed. He parted low-lying branches  
and other foliage in their way with swipes of his black-gloved fists. "I  
think we just hit old Route Twenty-two. We should reach the outlying  
ruins of the entrance to League Headquarters in about another hour or so  
if we continue on at this pace." 

Misty was directly in front of Duplica, walking uncharacteristically  
tired but also thoroughly hooded and cloaked against the light rain. "At  
least if we don't get lost," she said wryly. 

"Ruins?" Duplica asked, confused. "You mean Pokemon League Headquarters  
was destroyed?" 

Ash looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Duplica, where have you  
been? Yeah, the old headquarters was destroyed, but we rebuilt it further  
inland - in the centre of the Indigo Plateau City." 

"Well, I haven't been around this area in a long time," Duplica defended.  
Nor did I ever want to come back, she added silently to herself. If she  
had known that this was the route they were going to be taking... 

"What's wrong, Duplica? Not your usual perky self?" Erika said at her  
back. There was a hint of acid to her tone which puzzled Duplica. 

"Erika, please," Misty said tiredly. 

Walking behind Erika, but in front of Jessie, James and Persian, Bruno -  
who was silent until now - grunted. "Stop it. All of you. I am sick and  
tired of petty squabbling. I just want to destroy the Pokemon League once  
and for all." There was still the deep grief in his voice that he  
couldn't hide ever since they had escaped Cinnabar Island. 

Duplica looked down, thinking as she watched for muddy puddles to step  
over. Losing the person you loved most... it was the most painful thing a  
person could ever experience in their lifetime. 

"My feet hurt," James complained in the back. 

"Ssh!" Jessie unsuccessfully whispered. "Don't let them notice us while  
they're fighting." 

"Yeah, ssh!" Persian said a little scared. 

After that, they fell to silence again for a while, just the sound of  
boots crunching on underbrush and twigs, and occasionally the sound of  
branches being swiped away by Ash in the lead. 

Then the silence was broken as suddenly Misty stumbled as she tripped  
over something and fell, clutching on to Ash's back. Ash stopped, halting  
the group. "Misty, are you alright?" he asked, turning around to support  
her with his hands on her upper-shoulders. 

"I-I'm, fine," Misty exhaled. "Just keep going. I just feel a bit tired,  
that's all." 

Although Ash's features were concealed by the shadows of his  
hooded-cloak, Duplica could sense his frown. He reached with one hand to  
slide Misty's hood from her head. "You look a bit pale." 

He was right, Duplica thought, as she stepped closer and studied Misty's  
flaccid features. Her red hair hung limply around her shoulders and she  
looked like she was sweating despite the coldness of the artificial  
night. Her normally light-cream skin looked as white as snow and her  
usually bright-blue eyes seemed to have lost some of their inner-light. 

"N-No, it's okay," Misty insisted, although lacking conviction. "We have  
to push on before ... before we run out of time to stop them." 

Ash threw the hood of his own cloak back to shake his head. "No. Look at  
you. You can barely stand up straight. There's something wrong." 

Erika pushed her way past Duplica and felt Misty's forehead with the back  
of her hand. "She's burning up with fever. It's almost as if ..." Her  
eyes flashed green. "It feels like poison!" 

"What?" Ash asked angrily. 

"Seems to be -" 

Then Misty groaned and collapsed into Ash's arms. Ash held her tightly  
with an expression of worry replacing his anger. "What kind of poison? Is  
it serious?" 

Erika closed her eyes once then opened them. "I-I can't tell. Some part  
of it seems Grass-based but it also has other elements within it..." 

"Pikapi!" Pikachu on Ash's shoulder suddenly shouted angrily, cheeks  
sparking. They all turned around to what had caught his attention. A  
small, yellow and scaly form with glowing black, round eyes was perched  
upon a low-lying branch on a tree about a dozen feet in front of them. It  
clutched something white within its sharp front claws. 

"Shreww..." it growled in a hostile manner. 

"A sandshrew?" James exclaimed. 

Ash was suddenly alert, eyes beginning to glow golden. "Not just any.  
That's AJ's Sandshrew." 

"Does that mean he survived when he was thrown off the ship then?" Erika  
asked, eyes also beginning to glow in suspicion. 

The sandshrew narrowed its eyes and then pointed a paw at them. There was  
a light whoosh of air as it shot one of its claws downward. Ash moved his  
left boot out of the way as it thunked into the wet earth where it had  
just been. There was a small piece of rolled-up paper attached to the  
claw that Ash reached down to pick up as he supported Misty on one arm.  
He stood up and unrolled it to read it. A second later, his gloved hand  
tightened, crunching it into a ball. He dropped it on to the ground, eyes  
blazing now as he stared hard at the sandshrew. "That bastard." 

The sandshrew turned to leap off the branch and then scampered off  
through the trees in a westerly direction. 

Ash gave Misty over to Duplica and Erika to support, each with an arm  
over a shoulder. "I have to go now. Meet me at the ruins of the old  
League Gate. I won't be long - no one follow me." He looked down at Misty  
with a brief tender look in his eyes. "Please take care of her." A lump  
grew in Duplica's throat at the look. And with that, he threw his hood  
back on and dashed after the sandshrew with Pikachu clutching on his  
shoulder, black jagged tail streaming behind in the air. 

As Ash rapidly ran out of view into the hundreds of trees all around  
them, Bruno stepped over to the crumpled note and picked it up. He  
unrolled it and read it. He shook his head. "That AJ is a fool." 

"What does it say?" Erika asked. 

Bruno read aloud, "Meet me at the old Viridian clearing if you want your  
bitch to live. Don't be late." 

Duplica looked at Misty's unconscious face, pale in her sickness, but  
still with an ethereal beauty. She removed her own violet hood with her  
free hand and blew a lock of damp blue hair from her cheek. 

"Rest in peace, AJ."  
  


  
  


The bridge of the ship was ankle-deep in water and Giselle was frowning  
down at her ruined shoes as she concentrated on keeping the edges of her  
lab-coat from getting wet. Designers they were, she fumed. And probably  
the only pair left in the world after the company that made them was all  
but obliterated in the war. That Brock guy had a lot to answer for. 

"Like, listen up everyone!" Daisy was saying, seated upon the captain's  
chair, which she had swivelled around to face them. All the survivors had  
been gathered onto the bridge. "I think we've gotten the ship into a  
stable condition. As it is, sections five to eight are totally  
water-logged, but we managed to survive. If the storm hadn't settled down  
by the time we surfaced, like we'd probably be all sitting at the bottom  
of the ocean." 

Giselle looked out the view screen. The surface of the ocean was still a  
bit wavy but like the blonde had said, it was relatively calm, more in  
touch with the deadness of the world. A light rain was still falling, but  
nothing serious. "Probably, the power given off by Cinnabar's destruction  
finally died down," she said aloud. 

"And we're totally lucky that it did so," Lily said as she swung her  
chair around, splashing her feet in the water on the floor. "But right  
now, we're stranded out here in the ocean until we can get the turbines  
online..." 

"But-but we have to warn them about Brock!" Laselle said as she hugged  
her butterfree. She stood up agitated from where she was sitting down on  
a box. 

Violet paused from her rapid tapping on her keyboard and looked at her.  
"Not possible," she said sadly with a shake of blue hair. "Like, by the  
time we could get there, it would be much too late. I don't think we can  
even get the repairs done in time to pick them up at West Indigo Plateau  
like we planned." 

"Where are we now?" Captain Jenny asked as she leaned against the wall of  
the bridge. 

"Somewhere south-west of the old Pallet area's shore," Daisy answered.  
"We've been totally pushed back by the storm." 

Giselle sighed. "Ash is so dull. He should have taken that damn Shadow  
Ball with him instead of leaving it here with us. After all, he would  
have had to kill Brock eventually." 

"But that's what he was trying to avoid to do," Laselle said forcefully.  
"How would you feel about having to kill someone who was once your best  
friend? Oh, that's right, you never had any. Unless you count  
'boyfriends'." 

Giselle shrugged eloquently. "You got me pegged, little sister." 

"Besides, it was your admirer, Joe, who set him free in the first place!" 

"Look, I didn't ask him to love me so it's not my fault." 

"Please," Nurse Joy interrupted. "Fighting won't erase what's happened.  
We should be thinking of the solution, not bickering over whose fault it  
was." 

"Mistress..." a quiet voice suddenly spoke up. Giselle turned to see that  
it was that weird gothic-like girl in the black robe and charms they had  
picked up back at Cinnabar. Chanelle, her name was, she remembered. "I-I  
think I know a way to warn them..." the girl said. 

Laselle looked at her in suspicion. It was obvious that she had disliked  
the waif-like pale girl with long black hair on first sight. "Really?" 

"Yes," she said softly, pale-silver eyes looking scared. 

"Laselle, stop bullying her," Giselle said firmly. "If she knows a way to  
get to Ash and the others then let her speak." 

Laselle stuck her tongue out at her then sat back on the box, next to  
Junior who Giselle had almost forgot was in the room since he was so  
silent. She felt a light tinge of pity looking at him, but then returned  
her gaze to Chanelle. 

"Y-You see," Chanelle said, charms on her robes clinking as she stepped  
from foot to foot within the ankle-deep water, "back in Cinnabar, I was  
training to be a League Channeller-" 

Hikaru, one of Bruno's men, looked at her sharply. "A League Chaneller!"  
he said in horrified surprise. He backed away from the girl as if she had  
just grown two horns and a forked tail. Laselle had even let go of her  
Butterfree and was preparing to use it. 

"But that's all finished now," Chanelle said, looking down at her feet.  
"A-After Mistress Lorelei murdered everyone, I don't know what to think."  
Her pale silver-grey eyes moistened. "My friends ... my family. All  
gone." 

Nurse Joy stepped up to her and gave her a hug. "That's okay Dear. Don't  
think about it. You're with us now." 

Giselle was spinning the stethoscope on her neck around in circles.  
Finally she said, "So, a Channeller ... does that mean you know how to  
teleport?" 

Chanelle gave a slight nod. "B-But I'm not very good. I'm still a  
beginner. I get tired easily and I can only teleport a few at a time...  
maybe only three others besides myself. As far as Viridian City Ruins." 

Laselle frowned. "But if you knew how to teleport, why didn't you tell us  
sooner?" 

"I-I don't know. I guess I didn't think about it until now." 

"Like that's enough, as long as she can do it now," Daisy said before  
more hostilities could break out. "As long as we warn them about Brock  
and tell them that we'll be late." She looked over them. "So who's  
going?" 

Laselle immediately latched on to Giselle's arm. "C'mon big sister," she  
said sweetly. "You know you want to go." 

Giselle cursed underneath her breath. "You little power harlot," she  
whispered. "You're just saying that because of what you know about me." 

"Naturally," Laselle said unashamedly. 

Surprisingly, Junior spoke up too. "I'll go then. I need ... I need to  
speak to my father as well." 

"Okay, that's three-" Daisy said. 

"Me too," Hikaru interrupted. 

"But she said only three-" 

"No, no, I-I think I might be able to do four," Chanelle said. "It's  
okay." 

"You totally sure, Dear?" Lily said with a smile. 

"I'm sure," Chanelle said firmly.  
  


  
  


They stood around in a circle in the driest room they could find on the  
ship - surprisingly it was the bathroom. It was probably the  
waterproofing, Giselle thought to herself a little ironically. On the  
ground around them were six tall, lighted white candles that Chanelle had  
insisted she needed for the ceremony. It was also their only light  
source, since all power had been cut off in this section to save it for  
the engines when they finally became operational. 

"Now all link hands," Chanelle said, her pale silver eyes reflecting the  
light of the candles so it seemed she had a fire within her. She looked  
almost menacing; far different to the timid girl they had always seen so  
far. 

They lifted their hands to the sides and soon they were a completed  
circle - Chanelle, Junior, Giselle, Hikaru and Laselle. 

"Ow, do you have to hold my hand so tight?" Laselle complained. 

"Sorry," the young channeller said. "Now please be silent while I begin  
the incantations." 

They complied, and the room was completely quiet except for the light  
sound of gentle waves outside splashing against the ship's hull and their  
breathing. 

Chanelle finally began chanting in an eerie monotone, in perfect timing  
with the rocking of the ship's floor. 

"Night beyond light, Darkness beyond Twilight."  


A spooky breeze began to kick up around them despite the room being  
closed off. Giselle shivered. 

"I offer my soul to the dead."  


The candle flames brightened then burst into tall flames. 

"With this unworthy virgin's blood, I appeal thee." 

Chanelle produced a small pocket knife from her robes and slashed the  
fleshy part of her palm. Bright crimson blood dripped on to the tiles. It  
seemed almost to steam as it splashed in dark splotches. 

"Send us oh advocate, to thy location!"  


Her voice grew to an abrupt shout. 

"TELEPORTATION!"  


Chanelle's brightly glowing silver eyes seemed to dominate the whole  
room. To swallow them in a world of stark whiteness. And with it came a  
pain as white-hot as that gaze. Was it supposed to hurt this much? It was  
a thought that Giselle considered just before she lost consciousness.  
  


  
  


Light rain fell continuously from the blue-black skies above. The storm  
was over but the rain persisted. It pattered across the tops of the trees  
and the leaves so that it was the only sound that could be heard.  
Although without thunder and without lightning, a storm of a different  
kind would very soon take its place. 

At the edge of a circular clearing in the Western Viridian Forest, a tall  
athletic figure in a light-brown cloak waited, leaning against the  
gnarled trunk of a tall tree. A single eye that matched his cloak in  
colour glimmered in anticipation within the darkness of his concealed  
face. 

The corner of AJ's lip turned up. Ash was gonna pay. There was no way  
he was gonna ignore the letter of challenge. He remembered the girl  
with red hair and how she and Ash were so sickeningly close. He frowned.  
How the girl had cheered against him in the semi-finals. When  
unbelievably, he had lost. Pain flared in his palm and he looked down to  
see blood dripping from his closed fist. He had tightened it so hard, his  
fingernails had bitten the flesh. 

"Shrew!" 

AJ looked up across the other side of the clearing to see the squat  
yellow body of his pokemon scamper out of the shadows of the trees  
and run towards him across the wet grass. 

He frowned. Where was Ash? He was supposed to be following. "Where is  
he?" he asked angrily down to his pokemon when it had reached him and sat  
by his feet. 

Sandshrew looked back puzzled. "Shrew?" 

"Did you give him the letter?" he screamed, forming a long whip made of  
brown energy in his right hand. He began to crack it over its head. "I  
told you-" 

"You will give me the antidote," a voice said softly from above. 

AJ looked up into the branches of the tree above him, letting his whip  
dissipate. A lean form shrouded in floating black shadows stood  
motionless up above balanced perfectly along a bough. It was looking down  
at him, two glowing dots of gold that were its eyes gleaming out of the  
darkness. 

"Huh?" He leapt back into the clearing startled. It was him! How did he  
get up there without him noticing it? 

Ash jumped down, cloak trailing above him like a demon's wings, and  
landed swiftly in a crouch on the wet ground. There wasn't even a sound  
at the impact but his boots were smoking as if incredibly hot. Then he  
stood up, hands behind his back, all the while staring at him from  
underneath his hood with those frightening golden eyes. On his left  
shoulder was perched his black pikachu, cobalt-blue eyes gleaming as  
malevolently as its master's. 

AJ stood up straight and folded his arms. Sandshrew leapt up on to his  
own left shoulder. "I knew you'd come," he said with a smile devoid of  
humour. "You were always a sucker for a pretty girl." 

"Just give me the antidote, AJ," he said flatly. 

AJ narrowed his single eye. He flashed a small circular vial of red  
liquid in his hand. "If you want this, you have ta fight me for it." He  
flicked the vial into the air and caught it in his mouth which he then  
swallowed. "Just in case you think you can get it by stealin' it and  
runnin' away. Now I'll prove to the world once and for all, that I am the  
greatest Pokemon Master of all time." 

The gold eyes within the black hood narrowed to slits at the action. "You  
really want to risk attracting the Forbidden Pokemon?" 

AJ extended his right arm and Sandshrew ran along it. There was a tremble  
to the air, like an aerial earthquake, as it flashed and reformed into  
his thick steel broadsword. He threw his hood back behind neck, letting  
the rain fall upon his head, and spread his arms wide to the sides. He  
spun his thick brown sword around in circles. "You think I give a shit  
about any Forbidden Pokemon?" he roared. "We have to finish it! I can't  
live knowin' I'm not the best!" 

Ash regarded him silently as he adjusted his fingerless black gloves out  
in front of him. "Very well," he said softly. He extended his own right  
arm out to the side to let his pikachu run along it to his hand. There  
was an ear-splitting crack of thunder and a flash of bright lightning  
that forced AJ to look away. 

When he looked back, Ash was holding his long, wickedly-sharp katana  
horizontally behind his back, slightly curved black blade seeming to  
absorb the darkness around them. He stood slightly sideways in  
preparation, his black cloak sinuously moving around his body as if it  
were alive. "Just remember that you pushed me to this - I'll not go easy  
on you any longer," was all he said as he jerked his head back to let the  
hood fall behind his shoulders. His released black hair fell partially  
over his calm face. 

AJ brought his arms together, locking the hilt of his sword within both  
hands. "I'll remember to have the funeral people engrave that on your  
tombstone," he growled, the rain wetting his own green hair to lie over  
his forehead. "DIE!" he screamed as he launched a swing upward from the  
ground, blade glowing an ugly brown. The grassy earth beneath him was  
ripped open and a jagged blade of hard rock emerged to rapidly streak  
across the ground toward his target. 

Surprisingly, rather than dodge, Ash ran boldly into it, katana blade  
still held behind his back with one hand. Then with a ringing of steel,  
he sliced through it with one smooth stroke - so fast, AJ only saw a  
diagonal slash mark before the blade of rock exploded in a shower of  
pebbles and granite. And then the Shadow Master was atop him in a flurry  
of precise sword strikes. 

Black and brown sparks flashed at each clash of their blades. AJ fell  
back, parrying the strikes with some difficulty. "Very good," he panted.  
"But you forget something... Ground overpowers Thunder!" He forced more  
of his element along the blade causing it to glow brighter and struck at  
Ash with all his strength. Ash attempted to slide his blade along his in  
a spin manoeuvre, defensive to offensive, but was instead blown backward  
by the sheer power of AJ's slash. Brown ground energy pushed him back and  
high into the air as like a boulder thrown by a catapult. 

AJ laughed until he saw Ash rotate high into a backflip to strike the  
horizontal face of a top of a tree with his boots. Using the tree like  
a launching pad, he propelled himself back down toward him, Shadow Blade  
at the ready. AJ tried to do the same thing again but was rudely  
surprised when Ash picked up speed, and seemed to this time, dodge the  
slash rather than parry it, and nimbly enter AJ's center of defence. His  
breath exploded out of him as he felt a hard fist strike his belly, then  
again, followed up by a shifting side kick which knocked him backward.  
Then Ash finished the series with a step, double roundhouse kick which  
struck him first in the chest, then on the chin and this time, launched  
*him* high into the sky. 

Feeling like a bashed-in punching bag, AJ spat out some blood as he  
desperately twisted in midair to face Ash who had leaped up after him,  
black sword held over one shoulder ready to finish him off. "Not yet!" AJ  
yelled. He still had his own sword which he had not let go of despite the  
beating. He swung it while simultaneously letting his ki course through  
the sword once again. A blade of brown elemental energy was released  
which flew down toward Ash like a bullet. 

However, Ash pointed his sword down and let go a huge bolt of black  
lightning to force his flight higher. AJ's blade of energy narrowly  
missed him and instead struck the lower trunk of a tree at the edge of  
the clearing and sheared through as if the hard wood was as weak as  
paper. It fell over with a shockingly-loud crash. 

AJ spotted the branch of a tree behind him, and he spun into a somersault  
to grab it with his one free hand. Then using his backward momentum to  
his advantage, he swung around the branch until he was above it, let go,  
flipped, and landed in a crouch on the precarious limb. Quickly, he  
looked in the direction where he had last seen Ash and prepared to let  
fly another Ground Slash, but he was nowhere to be found. "Where are ya,  
coward?" he yelled. 

"You should never have brought Misty into this." 

AJ spun around and stood up. Ash was standing on the root of the branch  
just where it was joined to the trunk of the tree. He held his curved  
katana in one hand to the side, calmly spinning it around his finger in  
wide circles. 

"Your quarrel is with me, and me only," Ash continued. 

AJ rubbed the scar which ran along the left side of his face, and the  
closed eyelid where an eye was missing. "You think I care about your  
whore?" he said harshly. "Anything that gives you pain is what gives me  
pleasure. In fact, I wouldn't be sorry if your whore was dead already.  
That poison was incredibly lethal." 

Everything turned frighteningly quiet. AJ stepped backward to prepare for  
an attack when a horrifying red colour began to replace the golden-brown  
of Ash's eyes. Darkest black aura began to emit around his body and  
the still air began to move in a sharp wind, blowing AJ's cloak around as  
well as rustling the leaves of the tree around them. 

"You don't like that do you?" AJ asked smugly, not understanding what was  
going on, but knowing full-well that the death of his girl would hurt him  
terribly. He lifted his sword out in front of him. "Well, playtime's  
over! Sandshrew, Electric Inversion!" The sword began to spark on and  
off. A pity he had to resort to this move - it was kind of cheap - but  
the way Ash was acting unnerved him a little and he didn't want to take  
any more chances. 

Ash's eyes flared red once and stayed red. "Pathetic." 

His voice had somehow grown deeper, deep enough that AJ could feel it  
within his bones. He blinked. "What?" 

Ash began to step closer despite the blinking of AJ's sword. "Truly  
pathetic." 

"What the hell?" AJ said, looking at the blade. "Sandshrew, are ya doin  
it just like I trained ya?" 

Shockingly, Ash suddenly just grabbed on to the blade with his free left  
hand. "You are weak." Then his fist closed and the blade just snapped. 

AJ heard the dying scream of his Sandshrew within his mind. "NOOOOOOO!"  
he cried as the shattered remnants of his sword fell through his hands  
like broken glass. 

"It was a mistake to push him like that," Ash said, eyes still glowing  
red. He lifted up his long curved black katana and there was an obscenely  
loud boom as it reformed back into his dark pikachu. Except now its eyes  
were also red. AJ screamed as the pikachu latched on to his chest and  
began to glow blackly. Despite his immunity to electricity, he could feel  
the powerful current course throughout his body, vibrating him like a  
rag doll. It felt as if his blood were boiling - like he was being cooked  
from within. His single eye felt as if it would pop from the blistering  
heat; he could imagine it explode like a badly-cooked raw egg. 

Desperately, he thought fast. "If you do this, the antidote will be  
destroyed! I was lying earlier - she's probably still alive!" 

Immediately the immense electrical current stopped flowing into him and  
he was released to fall down, grasping at the branch by Ash's feet.  
Abruptly, Ash shouted as he clutched at his head as if in pain. His eyes  
were blinking from red to golden-brown as if he could not decide what  
colour they were supposed to be. Tremulously, he said, "W-What's  
happening to me?" 

He's crazy! AJ thought wonderingly. Now's my chance! "Die!" he yelled as  
he jumped up, ki channelled within his hand to stab him through the  
heart. 

Unfortunately, Ash sensed his movement and recovered just in time to  
change his Pikachu back into katana form which he then used to slice the  
branch out from underneath their feet. And then they were both abruptly  
falling forty feet to the ground with nothing to support them. 

"Fool!" AJ shouted as he looked down and threw his senses outward. The  
grass far below ruptured and a narrow mountain of brown rock began  
rapidly rising upward with the sound and force of a rising volcano. He  
landed on top of it and used it to gain his balance and slow his fall.  
Ash bounced off the side of AJ's man-made mountain and continued to fall  
toward the earth. "Fissure!" AJ yelled, commanding the earth Ash was to  
fall upon to split apart. Steam hissed at the violence and roaring of the  
earth's opening. He would make Ash land in a pool of molten lava! 

"Shadow Levitation!" Ash yelled as he tumbled downward toward his  
apparent death. AJ cursed loudly when a disc of shadow grew from beneath  
Ash's feet to stop his wild spinning and he gained enough control to  
glide down to the ground out of harm's way. 

"Dammit!" AJ exclaimed as he too landed back to earth upon his improvised  
elevator of rock. "This is for Sandshrew! Lay down and die!" he screamed,  
as he pounded the earth with both fists. He had to attack hard and fast  
before Ash gained his bearings. The bastard still seemed a bit confused  
from whatever had happened up there. And he was growing tired. Already  
with his pokemon's loss he could feel himself growing weaker. 

A crack of hard destruction zigzagged its way on the ground toward where  
Ash had landed from his fall. Seeing the attack headed his way, Ash  
leaped high into the sky. Black cloak gliding around him, he reared his  
arm back and rapidly threw his sword down at him. AJ dodged easily, the  
katana harmlessly striking down into the grass behind his back with a  
thunk. He jumped up and began rising up to meet him in the air with the  
helpful push of a rising column of rock. "That was pathetic!" he said  
disgustedly. "Now you've left yourself wide open!" 

"You should have just given me the antidote," was all Ash said with a  
regretful look in his brown eyes. He whipped what looked like a thin  
black rope of electricity down from his palm and it flew past AJ's  
shoulder with a burst of crackling energy. 

"You missed again ... ARGH!" AJ gurgled as suddenly he just saw the long  
curved blade of Ash's black katana sticking through the middle of his  
chest. How? How? AJ thought as he lost control of his column of rock and  
began to fall to the earth. He looked over his shoulder to find the hilt  
of the sword buried in his back and the thin black rope of lightning  
attached to it. Ash had pulled his sword back up with his rope to stab  
him! It was his last thought before he landed hard on his back upon the  
ground, forcing the katana even more through his body, bounced once and  
then died.  
  


  
  


Ash landed with a wet thump upon the damp grassy ground, the folds of his  
cloak settling around him. It was over. He jerked his wrist and his  
katana flew out of the fallen AJ's back with a whipping of the lightning  
rope. As he caught the hilt in his palm, he was already running. He had  
to get Misty's antidote from within the body. 

He frowned as he pushed his rain-wetted hair back from his eyes. For a  
second during the fight he had somehow blanked out. When he had 'awoken'  
he had felt the residue of fury ... and yes, pain, such that he had  
never known... it frightened him that he was capable of such hatred. He  
had to find out what was happening - although what he already suspected  
terrified him even more than what the conclusion of the Armageddon would  
bring if it was ever allowed to take place.  
  


  
  


Howling as shrill as a phantom, a wind had begun to blow in the dead  
atmosphere above - although there were no leaves and branches of trees to  
be rustled around in the near area. Like some sort of bomb of death that  
had been dropped, where there used to be a village in the midst of a  
surrounding forest, what lay there now was naught but blackened husks of  
devastated buildings and vegetation. Dirt roads that wound their way  
through the once-living town were now stained black - but it was anyone's  
guess whether it was from the ashes or the blood of the people who had  
died there. 

In the darkness, with nothing but a single lantern for light held aloft  
as well as the fire manes of their white mounts, four figures on  
horseback surveyed the destruction before them. In the lead, and the one  
holding the lantern, was a woman in a long black overcoat divided in the  
back for riding. Complex, braided blue hair lay still behind her neck  
and the half of her face that was not covered by her long bangs looked  
seriously upon what used to be the Pallet Settlement. 

Behind her, in line formation upon their steeds, was a blue-cloaked and  
hooded Pokemon Master as well as another aqua-haired man and blonde  
woman, both dressed in matching light, steel armor and thin grey  
over-cloaks which they wore upon their shoulders. 

"The Forbidden Pokemon have been busy," Suzie said quietly as she swung  
the lantern around and turned her pointed brown gaze upon the countless  
prints of clawed feet all throughout the ground before them. Most lay  
coagulated around suspicious piles of bones with gnaw marks on them. 

"Nasty business," Butch said in his scratchy voice. "I wonder. Are even  
us of the Pokemon League truly safe? How do you suppose they know their  
targets?" 

Silence reigned for the moment. Then Suzie answered quietly, "To tell the  
truth, I suspect not. There have been reports..." She supposed she should  
be worrying about her ship which they had left anchored around the shore  
near the destroyed Cycling Bridge with only a skeleton crew... but  
honestly, she only cared about one thing nowadays... Nothing else  
mattered. 

"So we were right," Cassidy said angrily with a flip of her ponytail over  
the shoulder of her over-cloak. "Our army getting savaged was no fluke.  
If you and your men hadn't come along when you did, we would have been  
devoured - even if those idiots Jessie and James hadn't come along. This  
farce of the League Master's is really some sort of suicide. All the  
better we find the twerp and bend his power to our own." 

The blue-cloaked Water Master suddenly broke his silence. "And after that  
we can kill him. I just want ... the bitches who did this to me." Rainer  
threw his hood behind his shoulders to show his abused face, swelling and  
with cuts as if he had barely survived from a brutal beating. 

"Silence," Suzie said with a calm but steely voice. "We're here to  
procure Brock, first and foremost, as you have failed to do several times  
already. I do not suffer repeated failures within my company." 

Rainer just stared down at his hands furiously, blue hair falling into  
his eyes. "Oh, you will have him alright, but I will have what I want  
too." There was also a hint of profound grief within his tone that was  
impossible to conceal. The Eevee brothers had been a tightly-knit family.  
And now they were a family no longer - just a lone man seeking recompense  
for loss of said family. 

Butch was thinking about what had been said earlier. "Speaking of Jessie  
and James, we should really find them again before they find us. I don't  
want to be surprised like that again." 

Shaking her head, Cassidy said, "I guess that girl isn't really as  
powerful as we thought to let them escape." 

"Enough talking," Suzie interjected as she hooked her lantern on to the  
saddle and wheeled her Rapidash around to begin galloping north-west.  
"We're wasting time. Now that the rain has stopped we should make much  
better speed." 

The two soldiers and the Water Master jerked their reins to follow.  
  


  
  


Over and over, powerful black waves crashed upon the hard rocks of the  
Viridian Gulf with the sound of powerful thunderclaps. Although the storm  
had died down, the seas of the ocean near the cliffs of the dangerous  
gulf remained violent and unending. 

Halfway up, on the slick, sheer, vertical face of slippery cliffs, a  
brown-cloaked figure was steadily climbing. Rocky hand over rocky hand,  
the six-foot-seven and more than two hundred and fifty pounds of solid  
muscle - more when he transmuted his body to rock - Rock Master climbed  
the razor-sharp cliffs as relentlessly as a force of nature. 

Smash. Smash. He created his own handholds to pull himself up by simply  
smashing his diamond-hard fists into the stone. The cutting wind was  
powerless to faze him as it was not enough to even jar the solid mass of  
his body. 

Less than half an hour later, he managed to pull himself to the top of  
the cliffs. He paused on the rocky precipice, crouching on one knee to  
gather his breath, then stood up to his full height. The stone of the  
cliffs continued on in front of him for about a dozen yards before it  
slowly gave way to the brush and vegetation of a forest. As he examined  
the ground for footprints, his thick, brown cloak glowed for a  
split-second to dry itself of the ocean he had just come from. There. His  
slitted eyes glowed brown. Boot prints in the dirt by his side. They  
seemed to converge into a single path leading north into the trees. 

He pulled his cowl over his head and began to trudge on when he suddenly  
sensed someone behind him. He turned around. "Sabrina." Like always he  
could never tell when she decided to come in except when she wanted  
attention. 

The Psychic Master stood with her hands behind her back, twilight-blue  
eyes like her cloak, staring out at him from underneath her hood. "Still  
after Mistaria, I take it," she stated. 

He growled. "I appreciate your help back there in freeing me, but shut  
your mouth on matters not your concern." 

Her eyes flashed yellow. "Not my concern? Really?" 

His own slitted eyes flared brown to match her. "NOW it is no longer your  
concern. Leave me be, witch." He spun around with a flap of his mantle  
and walked relentlessly forward. 

Sabrina shook her head as she teleported out with a flash of white light.  
  


  
  


"Uhhhh," Laselle groaned as she opened her eyes. She slowly pushed  
herself up to a sitting position. Everything was black, shrouded in  
darkness. She couldn't see a thing and it was starting to scare her.  
"H-Hello?" she called out. "Hello?" Her voice seemed to echo around,  
mocking her. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was that  
crybaby Chanelle casting that spell or whatever it was to teleport them  
all to the ruins of Viridian City. Had something gone wrong? She  
remembered a brief pain just before the spell was cast, but then,  
nothing. 

Then white light flared by her side, startling her. She blinked to get  
the black spots out of her vision. 

"Free?" The butterfly pokemon was sitting by her side on the rocky floor,  
a bright light shining from its dark wings. 

"Butterfree!" she said happily as she hugged her pokemon. "Am I glad  
you're here! Do you know where everyone else is?" 

"Free..." it said sadly. 

"What is this place?" Laselle said looking around. It seemed to be an  
underground tunnel of some sort, kind of like the ones underneath Mount  
Moon ... instantly, upon that thought, her heart starting beating faster.  
"This isn't Mount Moon is it?" she asked desperately. 

Butterfree shook its head. 

"But then, where are we?" she asked, puzzled, but still scared. A tunnel  
was a tunnel. And she *hated* tunnels. She looked north and it seemed to  
continue on forever until Butterfree's light dissipated and then it was  
just black. On the other side to the south, the tunnel seemed to open up  
into two other tunnels. 

"Free, free, free," Butterfree tried to explain. 

"What?" Laselle asked. She wished that she could understand it, like the  
rapport between Ash and Pikachu, but apparently she had not had enough  
time with it yet. 

Butterfree sweated. Then it hopped out of her arms and seemed to grasp  
her hand with its antennae. It manipulated her fingers into a 'V' sign  
and then pushed her arm up. 

"You're trying to tell me something," Laselle said, understanding. She  
looked at the sign on her hand. It was the one she used whenever she won  
a Pokemon battle. "V ..." she mused. "V for victory?" 

"Free!" the Butterfree nodded happily. Then it looked down at the dirt  
floor. It leaned down and traced two wavy parallel lines through it. 

"Um..." Laselle said. "Squiggles?" 

Butterfree sighed. Then its red eyes brightened. It leaned down again and  
drew a stick figure person between the parallel lines and what looked  
like one of those cars people used to use before the war when all those  
things were destroyed. "A road?" she asked hesitantly. 

"Free!" Butterfree nodded affirmatively. 

"Victory ... Road?" Her throat dried out and it felt like she had  
suddenly swallowed a golf ball. "Victory Road??? Oh, shit, oh shit, oh  
shit..." She glared at her pokemon with a frightened look on her face.  
"Butterfree how could you! I would have rather stayed ignorant!" 

Butterfree sighed again.  
  


  
  


Upon the crumbling stone wall, the shadow of a small campfire flickered  
in random directions. Somehow in synchronisation with the shadow's  
movement, there was a cold wind that whistled through the holes in the  
roof where the dead pallor to the sky could be spied through from below.  
It wasn't much of a shelter, the half-collapsed section of a building -  
one of many within the ruins of the old League Gate just at the western  
edge of Viridian Forest - but it was better than having to brave the  
depressing, cold weather of the world outside. 

Especially when Misty was so sick, Erika thought with a lump in her  
throat as she watched her best friend of these past years toss and turn  
upon the open sleeping-bag, sweat-soaked red hair splayed around her  
face. She had removed the blue cloak earlier and had found the small  
thorn attached to her upper-arm. It wasn't hard to find since the area  
around the puncture had begun to bruise an ugly purple colour; a distinct  
contrast to the natural paleness of Misty's skin. It was an evil poison  
that AJ had struck her with. She suddenly and furiously wished that  
whatever Ash had done to AJ was ugly and messy. 

Misty mumbled something in her sleep. Erika thought it sounded like she  
had said Ash's name. She shook her head. Even if Misty blamed Ash and  
herself so much from what had happened, she couldn't run away. Perhaps it  
was the reason that Misty had foolishly sought him out before all of this  
Armageddon stuff even started. An excuse to finally meet him again and  
finally get the man out of her system. If that was the case, then her  
goal had truly and completely failed. Erika was no longer sure on what  
leg to stand on. She used to think that Ash had no empathy with himself  
or others, but she had been proved wrong so many times already. He  
obviously cared a lot for Misty despite all their fighting but it was  
completely contradictory to what he was supposed to have done. 

She removed her red hair-band and bent it around in her fingers above her  
crossed legs. She still blamed herself for the death of her last three  
Grass Trainers. No matter if she had been lost with Ash, she just knew  
that she should have been there for them. It was illogical, but whoever  
thought that feelings had to stay within the confines of reason? 

And now, Misty. The poor girl who had probably been suffering heart-break  
for more than a quarter of her life - and now with a slim chance at  
regaining all that she had lost, the poison was now rapidly taking even  
that away. Ash, hurry, she chanted in her mind. Hurry... if Misty died  
... and with her right here and she couldn't do anything. Anything. It,  
it just wouldn't be right. 

Suddenly, a commotion started in the room next door where Bruno and the  
old Team Rocket were resting, voices shouting, and then the rotting  
wooden door banged open to reveal Ash looking deathly tired, his black  
cloak ripped in several places and with Pikachu on his shoulder. 

"Pikachu, give Erika the vial," Ash said as he banged the door shut again  
and leaned against the wall. As he brushed the hair away from his  
half-closed eyes, Pikachu leaped off his shoulder and scampered over to  
Erika where he dropped a small, round glass decanter. 

"Pika," Pikachu said sadly as he looked down at Misty, pointed ears  
drooping, then sat down on his hind legs by the campfire in the centre of  
the room. 

"Thank God!" Erika said anxiously as she lifted the container into the  
light of the fire and studied the liquid within. "This is the one. It  
could have been that AJ was bluffing that he really had an antidote and  
intended all along for Misty to die." 

"Just do what you have to do," Ash said in a haunted voice. He slid his  
back down the rough stone wall and fell to hug his knees and close his  
eyes. 

Erika quickly propped Misty up against a backpack and opened the decanter  
of liquid. "It was good you got it here when you did, I finally  
identified the poison. It's a lethal strain from the blood of a certain  
species of kakuna. It's only curable by the venom of the beedrill that  
would spawn from it ..." She opened Misty's mouth with a finger and began  
gently pouring the red liquid down her throat. "It causes a certain type  
of paralysation which tires at first, then attacks the nerves in your  
body causing non-movement and eternal sleep followed by death. It was  
even a wonder how someone like AJ was able to get not only the poison,  
but the antidote for it as well." 

Ash turned his head and opened one eye to look down at Misty. "So is she  
going to be alright?" 

"I think so. We'll definitely know in a few hours." 

He closed his eyes again and turned back to the front. "You seem to know  
a lot about poisons, Erika. I'm glad you were here for her." 

"It's not so puzzling since nearly all Grass Pokemon are part Poison as  
well," Erika explained as she sat down again and replaced her band back  
within her shoulder-length hair. "I'm nowhere near as good as Koga and  
Aya though. Those two were a veritable dictionary of poisons. I wonder if  
they managed to escape from South Lavender before it went nova." Suddenly  
she caught a flash of red on Ash's hands and she turned. Astonishingly,  
she realised that both his gloved hands were absolutely covered in  
dark-red blood, although most of it was dried now. 

Ash sensed her gaze and opened his eyes to look down at his red hands  
again. "You must be thinking I'm some kind of murdering monster," he said  
softly. "I was after all known as 'the Assassin' back in the wars." 

But Erika just turned back to watch over Misty, who now seemed a lot  
calmer, although if that was more from Ash's presence or from the  
administering of the antidote was unknown. "Is that AJ's blood?" 

A pause. Then, "Yes." 

Erika pulled her knees up and hugged them. "Then good."  
  


  
  


James had his ear pressed against the wooden door. "I think she's going  
to be okay," he whispered over to Jessie who was leaning against the  
half-crumbled wall on the other side of the room. He hunkered over and  
fell beside her to start brushing his longish blue hair with a comb. 

Jessie's dark-blue eyes were narrowed in concentration, long red ponytail  
laying over her shoulder, as she sharpened one of her knives on a smooth  
stone with light scraping sounds. "Good. We've been slowed down enough as  
it is." 

Bruno, who had been resting against the wall on the opposite side opened  
one eye. "If you think we're slowing you down, why don't you just go on  
ahead without us?" His deep voice was annoyed. 

Jessie clutched the black veil that was lowered under her chin as if she  
might raise it over her face in preparation for battle. "Fine. We just  
might go and do that." 

"No-no, Jessie," James immediately said. "I think we should stay  
together. Besides, our rain-coats are ruined." He indicated the torn  
yellow coats that they had discarded upon an old uneven table. "We can't  
go out in the wet with only our fighting attire." 

Persian, curled up in the centre of the room against some broken pieces  
of furniture, stopped licking his paws and gave a feline smirk. "Per...  
it's already stopped raining ... you just don't wanna go out there." 

James began to get angry at him. "Well, I was thinking more that we just  
might need some Pokemon Masters on our side. Remember what happened at  
South Lavender? Butch and Cassidy ended up having verrry powerful  
friends. I want friends like that too!" 

"Ah," Persian flopped a paw at him, "That was a fluke. I coulda whipped  
them eventually." 

"Hee hee ... I seem to remember that Jolteon making those whiskers of  
yours smoke," James said evilly. 

Persian glared at him with his vertically-slitted black eyes. "Shuddap." 

"So that's how you were captured?" Bruno was listening attentively now.  
"Those three Masters with Eeveelutions?" 

Jessie was back to sharpening her knives as she answered. But now they  
were harder strokes in her anger. "Yes, but it wasn't so much them as  
that damn bitch with the braided blue hair. That Ninetails she had ...  
I've never seen anything like it." 

"We tried to steal it so we could sell it," James admitted sheepishly as  
he scratched the back of his head, "but it didn't work out." 

Bruno gave them a flat stare. 

Persian shrugged his front shoulders. "Well, we gotta eat ya know." 

"I thought you were mercenaries now." 

"Well, it's been kinda slow what with most of our employers probably  
dead." 

Then the door creaked open startling everyone, even Bruno. Ash looked at  
them through the crack, his features exhausted and his black hair messy  
over his forehead. "We should get some rest everyone, for at least three  
or four hours. Misty might be okay by then. I'll take the first watch." 

Bruno leaned back upon the wall again and pulled his maroon cloak over  
himself like covers. "Don't worry. Duplica's out there already. She said  
she wanted to be on watch first and that she'd go get someone when she  
was tired." 

Ash rubbed his cheek with a bit of his black cloak and yawned. "Yeah, I  
did see her out there, sitting on a collapsed pillar. Is she okay? She  
looks like there's a lot on her mind. I've never seen her so serious." 

"I don't know. She's been like that ever since we got ashore," Bruno  
said. "Maybe, what with everything that's happened, it's finally sinking  
in to her." 

Ash shook his head. "No, doesn't sound like her. Anyway, when she comes  
in, tell her to get me for next watch? I'll ask her what's wrong then.  
Right now, I ... I'll just get back to Misty and see how she's doing." He  
closed the door. 

Bruno looked around at them. "Well I guess it's time for some much-needed  
shut-eye," he said as he closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. 

A few minutes later he opened them. "Jessie would you please stop that  
scraping with the knife." 

"Well, sorrrry," Jessie said sarcastically. She began sharpening her  
throwing stars instead which was even louder.  
  


  
  


Outside the half-collapsed stone building and sitting high upon a  
toppled-over column, a woman with long, blue hair and wearing a short  
black dress was looking up at the slowly swirling sky as she hugged her  
legs to her chest. Dark-bluish patterns almost like demonic symbols  
decorated the heavens - or was that hell? - that were haunting to look  
upon. They were strangely beautiful though... 

She blinked. For an instant, Duplica thought she glimpsed a shooting star  
behind that dark covering, but she wasn't sure if that was reality or  
just her imagination. However, according to the time-piece, it was  
supposedly around midnight so maybe she really had seen it. Nowadays, day  
looked as night and it was hard keeping track of the time. But at least  
she knew that there was a night sky up above - it was just being  
prevented from being seen. In any case, she had made her wish, even  
though she knew it would not come true. She had wished upon countless  
stars in her life and none had ever been answered. Except for one, but  
that had already been 'taken'. 

She rubbed her folded bare arms and shivered. For some reason a biting  
wind had arisen and was now howling around the broken ruins around them.  
It was all the hard-faces and shapes of the broken walls, boulders,  
overgrown weeds and collapsed parts of buildings that let the wind make  
its terrifying noises. Almost like ghosts. A tingle ran down her spine.  
Oh great, now that I've thought about ghosts, I'll keep on thinking about  
them... 

Still, thinking about ghosts gave her something else to think about other  
than what she currently was. She would rather feel frightened than this  
sickening feeling in her belly and throat and yes, her heart - especially  
her heart - remembering bad memories best left forgotten. She had tried  
to forget, and even actively tried to find a way where she would have to  
finally give up on her feelings for good ... but as with most things in  
life - at least hers - nothing was ever easy. 

The howling of the wind was harder now. The rustling of shrubs, vines and  
other foliage growing around the ruins grew louder and the collapsed  
stone column she was sitting on began to vibrate. Duplica stopped  
hugging her legs and stood up, long violet cloak materialising around her  
body as she willed her hair to stop flapping in her face. She lifted her  
right hand palm-first and created a brightly-lit torch from her flesh  
which she threw up and caught in her other hand. "Who's there?" she  
called out boldly, sweeping the torch from side-to-side. The light chased  
away most of the darkness, but there was nothing around her except for  
the shaking vegetation. 

And then suddenly the wind just quietened down, almost like it was just  
cut off, and everything was still once again. Duplica didn't let her  
guard down. The quiet before the storm and all that. She wasn't  
disappointed. 

A black, transparent ... 'something' swooped rapidly past her shoulder  
screeching loudly and it still startled her in spite of her foreboding  
feelings. Then another and another. She dodged from side to side, her  
heart caught in her throat. What were they? She could have sworn that  
some of them moaned her name, but she wasn't sure... even worse, she  
thought they had moaned *his* name as well ... 

She turned around, arms raised in defence, eyes searching above in the  
sky behind her for whatever they were ... spirits of some kind? But they  
had vanished, either out of thin air, or among the branches of the  
Western Viridian forest trees at the edge of the ruins. 

Her heart beating wildly, she debated whether to go inside and report  
what she had seen. Then she decided against it. She imagined Ash looking  
at her in disgust and then dashing off to investigate for himself. She  
had always been strong - the one never to take anything seriously - she  
had to live up to that image. Inwardly she began deciding on what form to  
change to ... ghosts and spirits. It would have to be something with high  
special abilities. But then wouldn't the Forbidden Pokemon sense that? 

"Thinking of something to change to?" a young girl's voice - eerie in its  
complete contrast to the terrifying atmosphere - startled her out of her  
desperate thoughts from behind. 

She immediately turned around and shone her torch brighter with a  
thought. A young girl's pale white face seemed to be floating,  
disembodied, in the shadows of a crumbled stone wall. Then she stepped  
forward, the sound of silver charms clinking, revealing a thin black robe  
over a slim body and long equally-black hair that tumbled loose behind  
her back. Pale silver eyes regarded her over a pert nose and a red  
rosebud-like mouth. 

"Chanelle?" Duplica asked, confused. "How did you get here?" Then she  
narrowed her eyes as her guard arose for some reason. Something weird was  
going on. It was strange and frightening in that the girl's manner was  
completely different to how she had met her and it didn't match up to  
the waif-like look. 

"Duplica, Duplica," Chanelle said, her soft voice low. "A most useful  
ability you have. To change your very shape to whatever you desire." 

Something was definitely wrong. "Well, it gets me on dates at least,"  
she said uneasily. 

"Are you frightened of ghosts, Duplica?" Her pale silver eyes were  
brightening so that they lit up the night with their whiteness. 

The fine hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end now. "Is that  
a rhetorical question?" This had gone far enough ... it was obvious that  
the girl was dangerous. How about an ekans? She could paralyze her with a  
glare and then get some answers. But when she went to concentrate on the  
metamorphosis, she heard a scream to the air that was so appalling and  
terrifying in its sheer pain and hatred that she suddenly just froze up. 

Chanelle looked on with a half-smile. "If not, you soon will be." She  
lifted her arms to the sides and a black, smoke-like vapour began to rise  
up around her like a cloud of death. Vapour which gave appalling giggles  
and laughs. She began chanting in a dull monotone,  
  


"Night beyond light, Darkness beyond Twilight  
I pledge thy soul to eternal death  
Compel thy wretched one within thy sight..."  


  
Duplica stopped breathing. A terrible pain struck her heart, a pain like  
a thousand boiling needles being jabbed into it over and over. What was  
this? A spell? But the only one who relied on such powers was ... NO. It  
couldn't be. 

Chanelle's eyes were a burning hot light of twin boiling white brands.  
She jerked her arms down with a metallic clinking of the charms on her  
robe. "Let us find out your deepest thoughts. Stare into my gaze and be  
destroyed by the truth!" 

And then it seemed like she couldn't look away and she was staring down  
into a deep, dark abyss. Within she saw a young girl with blue hair. She  
was all by herself, crying, with no one to comfort her. 

Duplica closed her eyes, but still she saw it. She began to scream. She  
screamed and screamed and screamed. 

But no noise came out.  
  


  
  


A pretty sixteen-year-old girl with long blue hair and wearing a  
wide-brimmed straw hat skips southward along the dirt road through the  
forest humming a joyful tune. The folds of the skirt of her violet dress  
ruffle in the breeze of her movement and on her face is a sunny smile  
that would brighten the day of any who might catch a glimpse of it.  
Large light-brown eyes shining as burnished gold in the sunlight  
filtering from the upper-canopy of the trees seem to be brightened in  
anticipation. 

"I think we're almost to Pallet!" the girl says out loud as she taps her  
straw hat angled at a rakish tilt on her head. With her free hand,  
she straightens the strap of the small handbag she is carrying on the  
slim right shoulder of her dress. 

"Dits," the apparent straw-hat says in agreement, a little smiley  
face on the front of the hat putting the truth of what it really was. 

A shadow suddenly darkens across her face. "I wonder if he'll remember  
me though," the girl says in a worried tone. Her skipping slows down as  
she thinks. 

"Ditt, ditto," her hat encourages. 

"Well, I am a famous entertainer, but he was the Pokemon League  
Champion," the girl explains. "I watched him on TV. He's much more famous  
than me. Or what if he does remember me?" Her voice deepens into an  
incredibly realistic male voice. "Oh, I kind of remember you! You were  
the cheap entertainer we met back on my journey. The copycat girl! But  
why are you visiting me now?" 

Her voice returns to normal and now her skipping has completely stopped  
in favour of a slower, depressed walk. "That's right, why am I visiting  
him anyway?" She brushes her long blue hair over her shoulder sadly. 

"Ditto..." 

The girl abruptly laughs, changing emotional states completely. "You know  
me too well. I just couldn't stop thinking about him ever since I met  
him all those years ago. I've never met anyone like him. We had ... some  
sort of connection. I-I've got to see if-if, well you know." Her pretty  
face reddens in a becoming blush. Then she snorts at herself and begins  
her happy skipping once again. 

The forest begins to thin out and in the distance, houses begin to become  
visible.  
  


  
  


Ding dong! The doorbell rings as the blue-haired girl stands in sudden  
worry on the porch of the house. She has her hands behind her back,  
clasped together and wringing themselves. 

This was a mistake, she just knew it, the girl thinks to herself as she  
removes her straw-hat from her head and clutches it underneath one  
slender arm. 

And then the door opens and it is a beautiful woman with long brown hair  
and light-brown eyes. Familiar eyes. And familiar features. But it is  
something even closer to familiarity, the feeling that she feels. It  
prickles goose bumps along her skin. It is like she *knows* her. How,   
she doesn't know, but she can swear to it somehow. 

"Why, hello there!" the woman says cheerfully. Then she blinks her  
light-brown eyes as she studies the girl more intently. Then she laughs.  
"Oh, for a moment there, I thought you were someone I knew!" Then she  
stops laughing. "Oh dear, please forgive me. This is no way to treat a  
guest. I'm Mrs Ketchum, how can I help you, young lady?" 

Ash's mom! the girl thinks. No wonder she seems so familiar. She can  
see some of her features in her son's face. But that isn't only it. It  
is also something else... something she refuses to think about. 

"Hi, Mrs Ketchum," the girl says when she finally finds her tongue. "I  
heard that your son, Ash, has come back from his journey, and I just  
wanted to know ... if he was here? I-I'm a friend that he met on his  
badge quest." 

"Ah!" the woman says in delight. "A friend of my son's? How nice. Yes,  
yes, he's here in Pallet, visiting me. Now where did he go off to ... oh  
that's right, I think he went out for a stroll along the beach just North  
of the Viridian Gulf. It's not that far. Just follow that pathway over  
there and it should lead you directly to him." 

The girl smiles. "Thanks a lot, Mrs Ketchum!" She turns to follow the  
woman's directions while placing her straw hat back on her head. But a  
haunting image of the woman strangely stays within her mind as she walks  
off.  
  


  
  


Underbrush leaves and twigs on the forest floor crunch like rice crispies  
as the girl walks through in a nervous mood. She thinks as she carefully  
steps and jumps over stones and small shrubs, keeping her straw hat  
steady with one hand on the wide brim. 

What would it have been like to have a mother? Ever since she could  
remember she had been alone. She did have a father, but he had been dead  
for so long she could hardly even remember him. All she pictured within  
her mind's eye was a stern-looking man with short blue hair and serious  
eyes. It was a wonder she couldn't remember more of him though, because  
she had been five or six before he passed away. In fact, nearly all of  
her childhood before that had been a blur. All she knew was that  
somewhere in those early years she had found Ditto, her best friend in  
the world. 

Since then she had lived within the old house with her Ditto. If it  
weren't for Ditto helping her with finding ways to make a living for  
herself so they could survive, she didn't know what would have happened.  
Her community had only been a sparse country-type place, no room for an  
orphan with no means of support. 

Nowadays though, she was quite well-off. With her entertainer career  
taking off, she had no more reasons to worry about getting enough money  
to survive the next day. In fact, with her detailed knowledge about  
all pokemon, she could have been a Pokemon Trainer - or even a researcher  
as well. Training a Ditto was equivalent to being constantly enrolled  
at a school like Pokemon Tech. 

But it didn't solve the problem of her loneliness. Often she would  
practise in front of a mirror in her various costumes just to play at  
there being someone else with her besides her pokemon. It made her feel  
not so alone. That's why when Ash came along when he did... 

She begins to hear the rhythmic sounds of something pounding on wood as  
well as smell the salty tang of the ocean. She peers around the next  
tree and she sees a boy, naked to the chest and wearing only baggy long  
pants with his back toward her, punching and striking a tall trunk with  
ropes wrapped around it for padding. His hair is worn in soft black  
spikes which rustles at each hard movement of his body. 

The girl admires his lean athletically-built back for a while as the  
boy apparently continues his training silently, giving no indication that  
he has sensed her presence. 

"C'mon, Pikachu!" the boy says, looking down to the side, "gotta keep up  
with the punches like this!" He does a three-step punch combination on  
the tree which incredibly seems to be snapping back at the force of the  
hits. 

The girl feels her mouth open in shock. Pikachu? She sticks herself out  
from behind the tree even more from where a bush was blocking her view  
and spots the small yellow electric mouse perfectly mimicking the boy's  
martial arts. It is standing on its hind legs and working on a smaller  
tree with corresponding ropes wrapped around it, cheeks sparking at each  
thrust of its paws. 

She looks back at the boy again, brown eyes wide open. So this is Ash!  
He looks so different ... so ... mature. Admittedly, it had been some  
years since she last saw him, and even then it was on the telly. Now that  
she had a more frontal view of his features she could see his cuteness as  
a kid had evolved to his current age... 

Unfortunately, she begins to lose her balance at the precarious position.  
She screams in shock as she slips and falls on her front upon a pile  
of autumn-brown tree leaves. The leaves scatter and fly up at her clumsy  
landing and drift around her like large snow-flakes. 

Eyes closed in embarrassment, she pulls her hat off which had become  
wedged over her face and pushes herself up. She opens her eyes in  
mortification and brushes long blue tendrils of hair out of her face. 

But the boy is only staring at her and rubbing his chin as if trying to  
work out a particularly hard puzzle. "I know, I know you!" he says  
enthusiastically. Then his light-brown eyes brighten and the girl knows  
already that he has come to the wrong conclusion. "You're Duplica the  
high class callgirl!" 

"Pika pika!" the pikachu agrees in excitement. 

Her eyes widen. She had *not* expected that. "Callgirl? I was the  
impressionist entertainer near Fuchsia City. But you know a callgirl?  
What dirty stuff have you been doing?" 

He laughs and scratches the back of his head self-consciously. "Hehehe,  
don't worry about it." 

"Pikachu," the pikachu says, correspondingly rubbing its head with its  
paw. 

She pushes herself to her feet with a groan and smoothes her dress down  
of sticking leaves and grass. Then she smiles at him. "At least you got  
my name right, Ashy-boy. Do I really look like a callgirl?" she asks  
wickedly and poses in a coquette position. 

Covering his mouth, he coughs once. "Duplica! Ahem, you've really changed  
a lot though!" He sweeps his gaze from side to side around her. "But  
where's-" 

"Dits!" The yellow straw hat on the ground bounces up from the ground to  
settle upon the girl's head. A small smiley face appears on its front  
edge and winks at the boy. 

"Ah! How cool!" He looks down at his pikachu sitting by his bare left  
foot. "Pikachu, why can't you turn into a hat? That would be really  
useful." 

The pikachu scampers up the boy's leg, then back and finally jumps up to  
sit on his head. "Pikapi?" it says, grinning cutely. 

The boy lets out a sigh. "Pathetic." 

The Pikachu shocks him. 

"Okay, you're a great hat then," the boy agrees hastily, his body lightly  
smoking. 

The girl laughs out loud. Then she pointedly looks at the trunks with  
ropes wrapped around them and arches one slim eyebrow. "That's new. Since  
when have you been training to fight? You yourself I mean. Not your  
pokemon." 

"I'll have you know that I've been training myself hard even before  
Pokemon League," he says a little offended. "I trained right beside  
Pikachu here. I've got to be strong too you know or it wouldn't be  
right." He rubs his hair sheepishly. "Of course I did learn some new  
things when I was out on assignment for Professor Oak." 

"Strong, huh?" the girl says, grinning as she takes her hat off. It  
promptly morphs back into its original violet, amoeba-like form and sits  
on her shoulder. "Well then, how about a match, Mister Ashy-boy Pokemon  
League Master?" 

He waves it off. "Ah, I'm not the League Master. Gary has that title now  
and from what I hear he's been doing a great job. No one else has beaten  
him yet." He walks over by the trunk of another tree where a small brown  
backpack is lying against it. He lifts a cut-off black shirt out from it  
and pulls it on, followed by a beat-up old Pokemon League cap which he  
plops on sideways on his head. "Well anyway, yeah, I'll take you on," he  
says keenly. "I seem to remember that I haven't beaten you yet either." 

"Ha!" she teases. "You want to use Bulbasaur again? You know it's kind of  
ego-gratifying to know that I totally whipped a League Champion's butt  
before." 

He smiles. "I've gotten better." The boy then looks down on his belt, at  
the several poke-balls attached. "I dunno about Bulbasaur... or Ivysaur  
now. He may want a rematch..." 

"Pikapi," the pikachu says, cheeks sparking little shocks. 

He looks at it. "Oh, you say you want to fight Ditto this time?" 

"Chu." 

"Okay. That okay with you Duplica? Ditto?" 

She folds her arms over her dress. "Fine with me. At least I know you're  
not going to go easy on me." 

"Ditto," her pokemon agrees. 

"I don't know," he says as he picks up his backpack and hooks it over a  
shoulder. "Pikachu's been known to be a softy around pretty girls. C'mon,  
let's battle down by the beach. It's cooler over there and maybe we can  
go swimming later." He begins to stroll off down an incline with the  
pikachu scampering by his side, expecting her to follow. 

The girl pauses for a moment, her heart beating. He thinks I'm pretty!  
She bends over to pick up her fallen handbag and then begins to follow.  
  


  
  


They stand facing each other upon the yellow sands of the beach, the  
sounds of the waves of the ocean unnoticed in the background. Above them,  
in the cloudless azure sky, the bright yellow sun is hot against their  
backs. But a cool ocean breeze is blowing a refreshing tangy wind over  
them which is rustling their hair and clothes around softly. Pidgeys and  
spearows squawk their bird cries as they soar and swoop high in the sky. 

"Go, Ditto," the girl orders as she tries to hold her skirt still from  
the wind which threatens to raise it indecently. 

The small violet blob with a smiley face on it, bounces forward over the  
sand. "Ditts!" 

The boy taps his beat-up old hat. "Okay, Pikachu. You know I choose you." 

"Pika!" The pikachu scampers forward on all fours with jagged tail  
upright, to meet its adversary. 

"Ditto, Transform!" the girl says, smiling. 

Smoothly, the violet amoeba changes shape until it is an exact mirror of  
the pikachu. Except this one is the colour of the girl's hair - a  
blue-teal colour instead of yellow - and it has black stripe markings and  
black cheek sacs instead of amber. 

"Huh? That's new," the boy says, extremely interested. 

"It's so we don't get mixed up," she replies a bit proudly. "I've been  
teaching her some new tricks with transforming." 

"That's great. Mind if I put a note about that in my pokedex later?" 

She gestures with her hand. "Help yourself." 

"Thanks. Anyway, let's get this battle started. Pikachu show them that  
Gurenken series we've been practising!" 

"Pika!" The pikachu scampers forward and begins a variant of punch  
manoeuvres that the girl recognises as the fighting moves the boy was  
trying on the tree. 

"Ditto, counter with Agility and dodge!" 

"Pika!" the teal pikachu acknowledges and desperately dodges the  
hand-to-hand punch and palm-strikes that the boy's pikachu is quickly  
executing. But it is obviously having trouble as each strike of the  
yellow pikachu is almost grazing it as it falls backward on its hind  
legs. 

"Pikachu, speed up with Agility also!" 

That proves to do the trick and the yellow pikachu manages to connect  
three times into the teal pikachu's chest and shoulder. Then it does a  
spin move and knocks it in high the air with its tail. 

The girl gasps. It was amazing how fast the boy's pikachu had moved!  
"Ditto, air-recover and Thunderbolt!" 

The teal Pikachu gains equilibrium in the air, flashes once, then sends a  
surge of crackling yellow-white lightning down at the yellow pikachu. 

"Pikachu, Absorb it!" 

Shockingly, the yellow pikachu takes the full brunt of the blast and  
instead of getting hurt it seems to suck all of the electricity into its  
body. 

"What?" the girl says in surprise as her ditto-turned-pikachu lands on  
all fours a dozen feet away and breathing hard. "How many new moves have  
you taught it?" 

The boy seems to think. Then he shrugs, a bit embarrassed. "I dunno. I  
sort of lost count." 

"This is crazy!" She is at a definite disadvantage. She only knows the  
basic attacks each pokemon has. She has no idea of any customisable ones  
that the boy seems to be using. She has to fight smart then... "Ditto,  
Thunderbolt the ground it's standing on!" 

"Pika chu!" The teal pikachu sparks, then instead of aiming its attack  
directly at the other pokemon it sends a charged bolt of lightning at its  
feet instead. There is a small explosion of sand and it is hard to see as  
a cloud of debris shaped like a mushroom hovers in the air around the  
point of impact. A second later, the yellow pikachu lands hard on its  
back a couple feet away looking a bit roughened up. 

"Good move!" the boy says. "You're easily smarter than the majority of  
the trainers at Pokemon League." 

The girl brushes a loose tendril of her hair back behind her ear, glowing  
at the praise. "Thanks." 

"But it doesn't mean you're better than me," the boy finishes with a  
confident grin. "Pikachu, Lightning Slash! But only use a quarter power!" 

The yellow pikachu leaps into the air, pointed ears laid flat against the  
back of its head. "PIKA!" Simultaneous with the cry, it slashes the air  
with its tail in a rapid spin move and a long blade of electricity  
explodes forth with so much power, the sand around them detonates a few  
feet into the air at the force of the blast. 

"Ditto, jump!" the girl says, stepping back in fright. 

"Pika!" The teal pikachu leaps high into the air. Unfortunately, the  
blade of electricity swoops upward to follow and it cannot escape.  
There is a small boom and sand flies everywhere. When it settles a minute  
later with both the boy and the girl coughing, the teal pikachu is lying  
on the sand a dozen feet away with X's in its eyes. 

"Ditto!" the girl shouts worriedly and runs over to her fallen pokemon.  
At her approach, the teal pikachu morphs back into its natural violet  
amoeba-like form. 

"Dits," it says weakly. 

Someone crouches by her side. It is the boy and his pikachu. "Is it  
alright? I'm really sorry! I shouldn't have told Pikachu to use so much  
electricity." 

"Pika," the pikachu says, ashamed. 

The girl looks at him and smiles faintly. "Fine! Trample my ego into the  
sand why don't you," she says laughingly. She looks down at her ditto  
again as it wobbles upright and wavers in a daze. "It's okay, I know how  
to lose graciously. I have to say that you two are just damn awesome. I  
can now see how you became the Pokemon League Champion." 

Red rushes to the boys cheeks and he uses his hat to fan his face. "Aww,  
stop it. Anyway we should be strong with the amount of training we do.  
Anything less would be embarrassing." 

Now's my chance! the girl thinks. Ask him to dinner! "Ah," she mumbles,  
"you wouldn't happen to be free for-" 

"Ash!" a pretty girl's voice shouts. "So there you are! I just got back  
from Cerulean City and I've been looking for you everywhere!" 

She looks up and sees a tall, beautiful girl with long red hair streaming  
behind her in the breeze as she runs toward them from up the slope  
leading down to the beach. Her eyes are as blue as the ocean and the sky  
and on her face is an expression of happiness ... love? 

"Misty!" the boy says excitedly as he stands up and begins to run toward  
her as well, his pikachu running by his feet. 

They meet together on the sand in a gigantic hug and the boy spins her  
around once in a circle. Happy laughter strikes between the two and then  
they kiss. 

The blue-haired girl watches silently, still kneeling on the sand. Inside  
her chest is the most agonising, burning pain she has ever felt, and she  
is feeling dizzy and disorientated. Is this how it feels to have your  
heart broken? She has never felt this way before, so maybe it is.  
Stupid, stupid! She should have known that the red-haired pony-tailed  
girl that was with him in the past would have probably snatched him up by  
now. She feels like the most stupidest person alive. 

Then the hugging boy and girl look back at her. "Who's she?" the girl  
asks in her pretty voice as she pushes a strand of long red hair from her  
beautiful blue eyes with a free hand. "I know I've seen her somewhere  
before." 

"Oh. You remember Duplica right?"  
  


  
  


Chanelle's silver eyes watched pityingly over the lying, writhing woman,  
crying softly to herself as she hugged her knees, prone upon her side on  
the ground. 

"You poor little girl... But perhaps you may be allowed to redeem  
yourself." 

The pale silver eyes flashed white once more.  
  


  
  


Ash awakened to the sound of someone stirring beside him. Misty! He  
opened his eyes and turned over to sit up on his sleeping bag. Sure  
enough, she was about to sit up and was rubbing her face with the back of  
one slim hand. 

"How do you feel?" he asked, immensely relieved that she had regained  
consciousness. He combed his fingers through his hair and examined her  
pallor. Her face had returned to its more healthy creamy tone and her  
eyes looked clearer and bright: a flawless aqua-blue which she blinked as  
she regained her bearings. 

She brushed some strands of long, red hair from the shoulder of her blue  
dress and looked at him. She licked her pink-tinged lips. "I-I feel  
alright." She noticed his tight study of her and blushed slightly.  
"Poison?" 

He looked away. "Yeah." 

Her voice tightened. "Who?" 

"AJ." He looked down at his hands again. Although he had washed them off  
from last night, he could still feel the itch in them; the stickiness of  
the blood that had covered his fingers like evil paint. "We don't have to  
worry about him anymore." 

She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking, like wild  
hilarity, but with grief. "This is all wrong. Wrong! How could we have  
degenerated to this? The world is already dead. Should we save it? It's  
like it's not even worth saving anymore." 

Ash grabbed her hand. "No. As long as there is still life we know we have  
to do something. Anything. This prophecy is a suicide, don't you realise  
that? And for whatever reason, suicide is always wrong. Life shouldn't be  
wasted. I've always believed in never giving up." He looked into her  
eyes. "If I hadn't, I'd probably already be dead." Then he quickly looked  
away as if her gaze into his eyes burned him to the core. "As for AJ ...  
the AJ we knew as kids was dead as soon as he failed at the Pokemon  
League. His hatred consumed him, leaving him an empty shell with nothing  
but a need to prove himself worthy of a worthless title." Something poked  
his finger that was grasping Misty's hand. A ring of some sort? He began  
to look down. 

But Misty pushed away from him. "But you gave up on me." 

He looked up, incredulous. "What are you talking about? If anything, you  
gave up when you went running over to Brock. Is that why you left on that  
day?" 

A cold, blue aura began to emit from her body. "What Brock said ...  
was a lie! I may have stayed with him, but that was only because he's  
always been our closest friend! I couldn't think of anyone else to talk  
to. There was never anything romantic between us." 

"It seems he thinks differently," Ash said grimly as he closed a fist and  
stared at it. 

She turned on him, eyes blazing in her fury. "Just like you say AJ turned  
into a different person, don't you see how Brock has changed also? For  
some ... some reason, he's become fixated on me. I don't know how, I  
always treated him as a friend, especially when we were kids. He never  
gave any sign that he thought of me as anything different. He was always  
after a different girl..." 

"He was hiding it ... and love doesn't have to have a reason to emerge,"  
he said glumly. "If I knew how he felt back then..." 

"What? You would have stepped aside?" 

"Why shouldn't I?" he shouted back. "I've always placed my friends above  
myself!" 

"How dare you?" Astonishingly, she growled as she leaped on top of him,  
knocking him over on to his back on the stone-tiled floor. Her grip on  
his wrists was painfully tight and he could feel the coldness of her aura  
beat his body. "You would have sacrificed us, just to be some noble  
idiot? And wasn't I a *friend* too?" Her eyes blazed cold, blue fire down  
at him. 

But for some crazy reason, suddenly Ash could only think about how  
beautiful she was with her long crimson hair splayed over him, eyes  
bright with emotion, beautiful face heated with anger. "I-I, but you're  
more than a friend, you're just Misty," he said softly. "You've always  
been Misty." 

And then her fury transformed into another emotion, one just as hot and  
demanding as the anger that had spawned it. A confused expression washed  
over her face as if she couldn't decide what it was that she was feeling.  
"Ash," she breathed, almost like a whisper in the wind. Then suddenly and  
shockingly, they were kissing as passionately and with as much feeling as  
if they had never split apart - in fact it seemed as if their feelings  
had even amplified since then. Her skin felt as soft and as supple as  
velvet, and where their lips were united was as hot as the midday sun. 

Ash wanted to break away. He wanted to. This was the woman who could  
break him like a piece of fragile glass. She had already done it once. 

But he was just too weak. 

He needed this. 

He needed her.  
  


  
  


Erika and Pikachu quietly crawled over to the door in a bit of haste.  
They had been awoken by the argument and had silently stayed as still and  
as unnoticeable as they could. But now that the two people, oblivious to  
everything around them but each other, had begun tearing their clothes  
off, now was the time to leave them to their privacy.  
  


  
  


Later, all was silent as they lay next to each other except for the  
steady sound of their slow breathing. The room was still shrouded in  
darkness since the campfire had long since died out, but they were as  
aware of each other as only two people who had shared the closest act of  
all, could be. 

Eyes tightly shut, Misty tried to hold reality at bay. As she was doing  
what she had done, she had promised herself that whatever came, she could  
bear it. If only she could have that pleasure, she could bear anything.  
But now that her head had cleared from anger and desire, like an  
anaesthetic that had just worn off, the full force of her aching heart  
came back to greet her. Sitting up, she tried to locate her lingerie and  
dress. Probably the worst part of it was finding it next to her all  
ripped up, while she still wore a part of her skirt that had become  
caught between her bare legs. She felt like one of those easy women or an  
actor in a dirty movie. 

She reached over to her pack for a change of clothes and turned away from  
him, expecting nothing. It hurt too much to have your expectations dashed  
down a cliff. "We should probably go soon." 

After a small silence, he turned over toward her, whole body stiffening.  
"Huh?" 

Resolving herself against hurt, she pulled her bra and underwear on  
almost mechanically. "I've already slowed us down enough. We have to get  
to Indigo Plateau and somehow stop the full prophecy from unfolding  
before it's too late." 

"Damn the Pokemon League! You really want to talk about that at a time  
like this?" Ash said, glaring at her with those golden-brown eyes that  
she could so lose herself within. "We have to talk about the past and  
finally resolve this!" 

She narrowed her eyes. How could he pretend he not know? Abruptly, she  
just felt a pain in her head. A pain which blackened her vision for an  
instant before it went away. And suddenly she just hated him. A hate she  
remembered feeling just before she had left all those years ago. A hate  
that she had gradually lost afterward as she realised that it was her  
fault too but had now strangely come back. But what was the most unusual  
thing was that she also felt the same love for him that it seemed like  
she always had. The conflicting emotions felt as if they would tear her  
apart. She felt like her head would explode. And so she lashed out. "Just  
let it go, Ash! Maybe we were both looking for closure. Maybe it's now  
out of our system and after we stop this Armageddon mess we can both get  
on with our lives." 

He looked at her as if he could not believe what she had just said. Then  
his eyes narrowed to slits and he looked down, his black hair obscuring  
his upper face from her view. He began to jerkily force his long,  
loose-fitting black pants on and then tightened it at the waist with a  
draw-string which he tied in a bow. "Closure? Leave the psychiatric  
analysis to that damn Sabrina, but leave me out of it." His voice was as  
icy as any cold attack she had ever generated. 

After pulling on his shirt and boots, he stood up swiftly and avoided  
meeting her gaze. Dark shadows appeared by his feet and arose in a spiral  
fashion to generate his long black cloak. He pulled his hood over his  
head, rendering his face invisible in its darkness and stepped over to  
the door. Still not looking at her, he pushed the door open. 

"If that's the way you feel," he said unemotionally, "then after this, I  
never want to see you again." He stepped outside and slammed the old  
wooden door shut so hard, it split vertically down the middle. 

Misty stared at the door cracking, even as her spirit felt the same way.  
Then she collapsed atop her sleeping bag, face against the ground as she  
rolled herself into a ball. She cried.  
  


  
  


The group travelled on through the ruins in a silence as stony as the  
fallen structures around them, with both Ash and Misty walking as far  
apart from each other as possible. There was a tension to the air that  
seemed even more violent and powerful between the two than the utter  
gloom of the prophecy unfolding. 

Erika couldn't understand it. Where had they gone so horribly and  
tragically wrong? She looked to the front where Ash was leading the  
group, gravely quiet as he stepped over fallen boulders and rocks which  
regularly blocked the path they were following. He seemed to walk  
stiffly, artificially, as if he was an inanimate object incapable of  
emotion. Sinister clouds of black shadow hung around his cloaked form  
like a vapour of death. His lack of emotion seemed to be mirrored by the  
still black pikachu clutched to his left shoulder. It was eerie. It  
horrifyingly reminded her of his demeanour when he still shared   
allegiance with the Pokemon League and was their most dangerous enemy. 

Misty was much the same way, walking behind even Jessie, James and  
Persian at the rear, covered in her blue cloak. Her hooded head was   
casting her face in darkness, but Erika could still see the blank   
expression, like the beautiful face of an unliving china doll. Blue eyes   
seemed unblinking as glass beads. 

In total contrast to the two's emotions though, Duplica walked beside her  
with a face as sunny as a day on the beach. Shrugging off the cold wind  
that howled like a shrill banshee amongst the deserted wreckage and  
rubble of the once lively South Indigo City, she just wore the most  
scandalous short dress of black nothing that Erika had ever seen or  
imagined. Skipping along, occasionally running her hand through her long  
tealish-blue hair like an egotist, Duplica seemed to be having a lovely  
time. 

"What is your problem?" Erika finally said to her, breaking the group's  
self-imposed silence. She made sure to let her eyes flash green at the  
ditzy woman just to show that she meant business. 

Duplica just arched an eyebrow at her and tossed her long hair over a  
shoulder. It was as annoying an action as even Giselle could execute.  
"Well, excuuuuse me, Plant Girl, but unlike you spoilsports, I prefer to  
keep a happy composure." Then outrageously, her form blurred, grew  
taller, then smoothly transformed into an exact mirror image of her.  
Green-cloaked woman with grass-green eyes, shoulder-length black hair  
highlighted with blue and even the same red hair-band. Erika scowled, as  
Duplica-turned-Erika then stuck her tongue out at her and lowered an  
eye-lid. 

"Oh, look at me, I'm high-and-mighty Erika!" Duplica said in an exact  
replica of her voice and flashed her own green eyes back at her. "Always  
the perfectly-groomed beautiful princess!" She spun around and curtsied  
mockingly. 

Erika stopped walking, gaining everyone else's attention as they stopped  
too. Feeling angry as she had never felt before, even angrier than when  
her Gym had gotten burned down by Team Rocket and her Gloom had almost  
died, she lifted a hand that grew as bright as the sun with solar energy.  
"Why, you little..." 

"Duplica, you've gone too far," Bruno interjected before a fight could  
break out. "You should apologise. We can't afford any discrepancy within  
our group." 

The Erika clone laughed at him. "Oh bite me, Bruno-baby." She changed  
back to her original scantily-clad form and blew a kiss at him. "Besides,  
what are you going to do? If you try anything I'll change into you and  
kick your own ass." She laughed again. "Although I'd prefer not to change  
into an icky male body." 

Ash finally intervened, his voice in puzzlement now rather than  
unemotional. "Duplica, do you feel alright? You've been acting so odd  
lately." 

Erika paused. That was right. Yesterday, Duplica had been moody, almost  
depressed. Now she was acting so annoyingly care-free and over-the-top;  
even more than her usual brand of silliness. From extreme to extreme:  
that wasn't normal. Perhaps she had been a little too hasty in getting  
angry. Duplica was probably heavily troubled. 

"Never better," Duplica then said, batting her eyelashes at Ash. "I guess  
I just feel a little hyped at the fact we're finally going to destroy the  
Pokemon League for good and stop their vile evilness from corrupting the  
innocent!" 

"I wouldn't say that," Ash said, still a little perturbed. "The League  
isn't evil. It's just that the current Master feels that he is in the  
right. Life should end so that it can start again." 

"We're all going to die?" James suddenly said in the background. 

"Shut up!" Jessie and Persian immediately said as they each smacked him  
on the head and scratched him correspondingly. 

"How do you know so much of what Lord Garick's plans are?" Bruno said  
questioningly. 

Ash looked away. "He told me himself. Remember, I *was* a Pokemon Master  
for the League." 

"You don't have to remind me," Bruno muttered. 

Misty frowned. "We should go now." 

Ash didn't look at her as he twisted back in the direction of the pathway  
through the ruins and the forest. He started their procession again.  
"Yes. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get out of each other's  
sight." 

A cold gust of wind blew in front of them carrying a small tornado of  
leaves and rocks. The rocks were smashed to dust as they collided with a  
huge stone pillar. But the leaves floated away unharmed.   
  


  
  


Gradually, as they walked north through the weed-infested ruins, the  
pathway grew to better quality stone and the surroundings looked more and  
more preserved, with intermittent buildings that actually looked  
undamaged. The forest trees by the edges had begun to thin out as well,  
to shorter shrubs and grass and there was the light sound of streams  
flowing to mingle with the high voice of the wind. However, the horizon  
in front of them showed no sign they were nearing the edges of the Indigo  
Plateau, the heart of the Pokemon League. By now, the tops of the  
buildings of the capital city should have been in view over the top of  
the rubble and debris, but instead it was as a blank canvas with an  
artist that only used black paint. 

Ash stopped walking abruptly, causing everyone else to halt as well. "Not  
good," he said cryptically. 

"What is it?" Bruno asked, eyes narrowed as he folded his huge arms. 

"We'll have to find another way into Indigo Plateau. This way is  
blocked." 

James strode forward confidently, fiddling with the lowered, black  
ninja's veil beneath his chin. "Nonsense! Looks clear to me! Oof!" He  
smashed into something hard and fell unceremoniously on to his bottom on  
the stone pathway. 

"That's why the horizon is black," Ash explained, dusting off his  
night-dark long cloak from specks of dust that had arisen from James'  
collision. 

Erika took a cautious step past Ash and felt the air in front of her with  
a hand. "You're right. I don't see anything but there's a wall here." 

"How high does it go?" Bruno asked, looking up as if imagining the  
barrier that was there in his mind's eye. "Maybe we can go over it." 

Ash reached inside himself and prodded forward with his awareness. "No  
good. It's like a dome over a mile in diameter reaching over and  
protecting the whole of the Plateau. It goes underground too." 

"Can you break it?" Misty asked in a hard tone of voice. 

He suddenly punched forward so hard, a blast of air flailed the folds of  
everyone's cloaks and clothes back. Black sparks erupted from something  
in front of his fist with a small boom of thunder. Then he dropped his  
hand and shrugged. "It seems to be generated of Shadow type elements. So  
without doing anything short of cracking the planet, I don't think  
there's anything I can do to dispel it." 

"Pika," Pikachu agreed atop his shoulder. 

Suddenly he felt someone clutch on to his arm tightly. It was Duplica,  
light-brown eyes looking at him sweetly. "Come, Ash. Forget about this  
for now. Let's go over there behind that wall on the grass and have some  
fun." She pressed her soft body against him. 

Misty growled behind them and Erika gasped. 

Ash felt extremely disturbed. "Duplica-" Then he heard a twig snap and he  
realised that his senses were screaming at him when he had been  
distracted. A flash of silver was caught in his peripheral vision and  
reacting lightning-quick, he thrust an arm up to knock the arrow away  
that had been shot at him. 

From around the ruins surrounding their sides and back, over a dozen  
people in brown forest clothing jumped up from behind cover of boulders,  
walls and buildings, screaming battle cries and waving swords and  
shields. The ringing of steel drowned out the earlier silence of the area  
as weapons were drawn in preparation for battle. "Attack!" a man's voice  
cried from the direction that the arrow had come from. 

"Ambush!" Bruno roared as he threw off his hood and prepared to intercept  
his first attackers with hand and foot. 

Jessie and James instantly veiled themselves and produced their double  
steel sai knives, while Erika summoned her long ebony staff into her  
hands with a flash of green energy. Persian hissed as he crouched,  
white fur rising up on his back like sharp spikes. Behind them,  
a cold arctic glow surrounded Misty's hands as she created her twin ice  
blades. 

And then it was a general melee as the many attacking people reached them  
in a surrounding wave and there was a clash of hard sound and movement as  
blows were exchanged. 

"Remember, easy on the elemental attacks! And only knock them  
unconscious. These aren't League soldiers," Ash demanded as he let go of  
Duplica and prepared to join in, Pikachu's cheeks sparking black  
lightning as he growled roughly atop his shoulder. 

The archer that had shot at Ash earlier raised himself into view from  
behind the stone wall he was using as cover. He had long brown hair and  
was dressed in a green long-coat and silver chain mail. Surprisingly,  
there was something highly familiar about his facial features. "Pokemon  
Master scum!" the archer snarled as he lifted his large, ebony long-bow.  
"Men, get the black one first! He seems to be the one in charge!" And  
with that he shot forth another volley of arrows surprisingly skilful and  
quick. 

Ash twisted nimbly, dodging the arrows easily despite some of the shafts  
piercing through the loose folds of his cloak. A man roared from behind  
him, trying to take advantage of his apparent preoccupation, and swung a  
huge great-sword to cleave him vertically down the middle. Ash spun to   
the side and stopped the blade by grasping on to it with the forefinger   
and thumb of his left hand, and smoothly, flowed the movement into a   
rotating roundhouse kick, cloak flapping, to strike the heel of his right   
boot into the man's cheek. There was a crunching sound and a scream as   
the man flew away backward several yards and knocked into a nearby pole   
to fall over unconscious. To conclude, Ash spun the stolen blade around   
his fingers and then threw it slightly to grasp on to its hilt. 

Next, a woman with short, blue hair and amber eyes ran up to him,  
brandishing a rapier as she jumped over the fallen man. With her free  
hand, she threw a poke-ball at the ground. "Kabutops, Slash attack!" she  
screamed as the ball split open and released a large bipedal rock  
creature with a dome-shaped head and large scythe-like fore-arms like a  
praying mantis. It hissed, eyes glowing red, and leaped forward, both  
blade-like arms raised to cut him down. 

Without a sound, Ash skilfully blocked the slashing of its blades with  
the large great-sword and as it was off-balance, he kneed it in the chest   
with a cracking of rock and then struck it on the skull with the hilt of   
his weapon in bone-crushing force. While the Kabutops collapsed into  
unconsciousness, he threw Pikachu at the charging woman. "Pikachu,  
Submission ... but not too hard." 

The woman swung her rapier down at the leaping, black pikachu, but was  
too slow for the small pokemon's extreme speed and missed completely.  
Pikachu obliged the opening with a powerful headbutt into the woman's  
belly and she collapsed, coughing, as the pokemon returned to Ash's side  
with an agile backflip. 

"Melanie!" the brown-haired archer yelled anxiously, his hand  
outstretched in plea. He threw his bow down and drew a long-sword from a  
sheathe at his belt with a ringing of steel and leaped over the wall to  
charge him. "Bastard! Now you pay!" He raised the sword over his  
shoulder. 

Ash threw away the great-sword with a clatter and faced him directly,  
eyes glowing golden within the shadows of his hooded-cloak. "You attacked  
us first, so you should be prepared for the consequences of your  
actions." 

"Monsters!" the man accused, tears flying out of his brown eyes. "It's  
you Pokemon Masters that brought those, those black nightmares of shadow  
here! Now because of you ... most of my family are dead!" He slashed his  
sword diagonally. Ash dodged. He swung again, this time in the opposite  
direction. Ash dodged yet again. 

"We had no part with bringing the Forbidden Pokemon to this plane," Ash  
said, all the while dodging the man's skilful sword strokes. "Call your  
men off before any more get hurt." He nodded his head to the side where  
Bruno was nearby brutally hammering any man that unwisely tried to attack  
him with his huge meaty fists. Erika held at least four or more men and  
women to a standstill with expert defensive blocks with her staff. Misty  
had disarmed at least three men and knocked even more of them  
unconscious. Even Jessie, James and Persian kept more than their fair  
share busy while Duplica was playfully morphing herself into all manners  
of forms, annoying her attackers into a frenzy with her confusing style  
of attack. One moment, she'd be a growlithe, snapping at their legs, the  
next, a fearow pecking at their heads. 

"I saw you cloaked devils! I saw one of you with a whole swarm of them  
destroy my village! Burning ... and-and eating!" he sobbed, his attacks  
now weakening as he tired. Ash thought best to incapacitate this man and  
order the rest of his people to stop, using him as a hostage. He was  
about to streak forward and do just then when a young girl's voice  
interrupted them. 

"Big brother!" the girl cried. "Stop, I recognise that man you're  
attacking! H-He's not bad! He saved me!" 

He turned around and spotted a girl with dark hair running toward them  
from out of cover of the various ruins. He abruptly recognised her as the  
girl he had helped all the way back at the Pallet village. 

"Honey?" the man exclaimed, as he stopped his frenzy of sword slashes.  
"What do you mean?" 

The girl stopped by their sides, breathing heavily from her run and her  
panic. "Please, big brother ... stop," she sobbed, hands on her knees to  
support herself. "Remember when you were on your business trip and the  
settlement got attacked that first time? And we were saved by a stranger?  
This is him big brother! This is Ash!" 

"Ash?" the brown-haired man said in complete shock. 

Pikachu leapt up on to Ash's left shoulder and he threw his hood back to  
reveal his face. "That's right. Call off your people." 

"B-But, I know you!" the man burst out in surprised recognition. He  
rushed forward and hugged him tightly and warmly. "Remember me? I'm  
Snap!" 

A bit embarrassed, Ash groaned. "Um, your people, Snap? Call them off." 

"Oh, right. Sorry."  
  


  
  


It took some time before all the fighting ceased due to the confusion of  
the battle, but finally they all stood before the villagers and their  
apparent leader at their 'base' outside one of the large stone buildings  
that made up the ruins. Melanie was seeing to all the injured people they  
had beaten up after popping a stomach-ache pill for herself. She had  
complained that Pikachu's head was too hard. 

"I can't believe it's really you, Ash!" Snap was saying as he shook his  
head in wonder, long brown hair rustling on his shoulders. "And well ...  
on the side of 'good' if that beat all. Last I heard you were cheerfully  
working for the Pokemon League." 

"Likewise," Ash said, looking him over. "I thought you were a pacifist  
myself." 

Snap looked down at his feet, brown eyes suddenly sad. "In a perfect  
world I might have been able to stick with my beliefs, but you know  
that's only a dream with how things really are." He sat down on a small  
boulder and rested his forehead on a hand. 

"Still taking photos?" Ash asked, hoping to cheer him up with mention of  
his old profession which he knew he had loved. 

If it was possible, Snap looked even more depressed. "All my camera  
equipment was destroyed long ago. That or stolen." He sighed. "And now  
where in the world am I going to buy a new camera?" he laughed  
depreciatingly. 

Misty looked at Ash and shook her head. "Gee, Ash you're really great at  
cheering people up." 

Ash ignored her. He still felt all the pain resting upon an inner-barrier  
he had erected to ward off his emotions. It was like holding off an  
avalanche of stone boulders with a shield of wallpaper. 

Snap suddenly looked up at her, eyes widening. He jumped off the boulder,  
ran and crushed her in a bear-hug. "If it isn't Misty!" he cried  
delightedly. "You're so beautiful! I remember even having a crush on you  
back then." 

"Thanks, Snap," Misty gushed as she stepped back out of his embrace. "You  
aren't so bad yourself," she said, looking over his muscled body encased  
in the chain-mail and green long-coat. She tossed her long red hair over  
a shoulder and smiled flirtingly with exquisitely-shaped pink lips. "That   
long hair suits you." 

Ash growled deep in his throat. He was about to step forward and say  
something he'd regret when Duplica suddenly clutched on to his arm and  
rubbed her scantily-clad breasts upon them. He blushed. 

"Well, I think Ashy-boy is so much cuter," Duplica declared with a sniff  
of haughtiness. "I love his eyes, they're so beautiful and when they  
glow, doesn't it just make your lower body explode?" 

Now it was Misty's turn to growl. She jumped to Snap's side and clutched  
his arm to the man's complete surprise. "Well look at Snap's muscular  
body. More muscles means a sexier body. He looks so rugged and powerful." 

"Oh, please," Duplica scoffed, rubbing Ash's torso through his cloak. "I  
like them more athletically-built. Too much muscles are sickening.  
Besides Ashy-boy's face is a lot more handsome." She sighed as if  
weak-willed. "So bishounen..." 

Misty had no counter for that and scowled at Duplica, blue eyes shooting  
cold azure fire. Then she just stamped her foot and stalked away. 

"What was all that about?" Snap said a bit confused after Misty left. 

Erika was frowning darkly at Duplica. "Just a bitch-fight," she said,  
before turning around to catch up with Misty. 

Ash was combing his hand through his black hair in agitation. "Duplica,  
thanks, but can you like, maybe stop holding me so tightly now?" was all  
he said. 

"No problem, Ashy-boy," Duplica said, smiling as she stepped away and  
winked at him.  
  


  
  


Later, when certain hot-heads had cooled off, Snap, Ash, Misty, Duplica,  
Pikachu, Erika, Bruno, Jessie, James and Persian all sat in a circle  
making plans about the infiltration into Indigo Plateau. They had told  
Snap about their targets and what they had to do to stop the prophecy of  
death from finally executing its last phase. And then how the dome of  
shadow had stopped them from carrying out their mission. 

"There is a way into Indigo Plateau," Snap said excitedly, upon hearing  
of their difficulty in entering. "One of our spies saw some people coming  
in and out of there, so there is a breach in that barrier that people may  
pass." 

"And where is that?" Bruno said quickly, leaning forward, eyes glowing  
maroon in his eagerness. 

"You remember Victory Road, right? You were one of the original Elite  
Four, after all." 

Bruno leaned back, disappointed, and folded his thick arms over his  
muscular torso. "Impossible. The tunnels of Victory Road have long since  
collapsed during the Dark Pokemon Wars. Even a diglett can't dig through  
all that mess." 

"Bruno," Ash said quietly, as he brushed some long hair out of his eyes  
and behind his ear. "Victory Road was excavated and restored since then.  
The Pokemon League were using it for a secret escape tunnel just in case  
any large hostile force ended up threatening it like in the wars. In  
fact, it was how I managed to get out after I thought I killed Gary." 

Bruno leaned forward again, his rugged face lighting up in hope. "Then  
that's it then! We can get in if that's where the breach in the shadow  
dome is!" 

"B-But, a tunnel?" James suddenly whined as he clutched his head in  
worry. "Don't you remember last time we were in an underground tunnel?" 

"Perrr ... y-yeah," Persian agreed, white fur standing on end. 

Even Jessie looked more than a little scared, although she tried to hide  
it by hiding behind James back. "I have a phobia about tunnels," she said  
in a high voice. 

"But it's different now," Misty said. She glanced at Ash. "There won't be  
a Missingno in there." 

Ash didn't blink. 

"Wouldn't there?" she asked with a slight tremor in her voice. 

Finally Ash looked down at his hands and began to pull on his black,  
finger-less gloves. "I agree, it's unlikely. But with two levels of the  
Forbidden open, I can't guarantee that we won't meet one in there." 

"But, Missingno was a Master Pokemon," Bruno said. "There can't be more  
than one of a Master Pokemon can there?" 

"True ..." Ash considered, staring down at his gloves. "But do you know  
that the Astral Plane, or Hell as it's normally called, is full of Shadow  
Pokemon like Missingno?" 

"What is a Missingno?" Snap asked. 

"You wouldn't want to know," Duplica said with a half-smile. 

"Basically, it's a killer black mist that consumes flesh," Bruno offered. 

Duplica stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, you. You spoil all my fun." 

Snap was visibly shivering in his chain armor. "Then it's just as good  
that I'm not going with you then. After all, I have to take care of my  
people and my sister; and besides? I'm way too weak to compare to any of  
you Pokemon Masters, even Team Rocket." 

Jessie and James rapidly flashed a veritable mountain of sharp,  
wicked-looking knives in his face. "Hey! We resent that!" 

"No offense," Snap said, waving his hands in a gesture of surrender.  
  


  
  


Some hours after that, they were all laying down flat against the far  
side of a forested hill and observing the supposed entrance to the  
Victory Road tunnel. Pikachu was next to Ash, glowing softly with a dark  
light to help Snap point it out to them. 

Snap pointed at an old stone structure that looked like an entrance to a  
crypt by the ruins of pillars and buildings at the bottom of the incline.  
In fact, it probably really was a crypt; the place *was* a graveyard with  
many tombstones and cross-shaped stone markers littering the gloomy area  
like trees in a forest. There was a stale stench to the air that made one  
wonder if they were breathing in the air of the dead. It was a place of  
gloomy monotones, everything seeming to be either a shade of grey or  
black. Or twilight. 

"I'm sure you already knew where the entrance was, but just in case, I  
had to point it out to you," Snap stated. 

"Well, thanks for escorting us," Ash said absently as he scanned the area  
around the crypt and graves for any sign of movement. 

"No problem, man. Anyway, I have to go now. Maybe I'll see you guys  
afterward?" he looked anxiously at them with worried brown eyes. 

"A word of advice," Erika said softly. "I'd get your people about as far  
as humanly possible from the area around here. We haven't got a very good  
track record with keeping places tidy." 

"Well, thanks for the pointer, Mistress Erika," Snap said, smiling at  
her. "I do hope a beautiful lady like you makes it out alive." 

Tinges of red appeared on Erika's cheeks and she hurriedly hooded herself  
with her green cloak. "Oh, get out of here, flatterer!" 

Snap gave them one last smile, smoothed his long brown hair back, and  
then got up in a crouch to dash quickly back into the ruins  
and overgrown vegetation behind them. He was soon out of sight. 

"Okay," Ash said as he got up on one knee and adjusted the straps of his  
backpack. "There doesn't seem to be anyone or anything around." He hooded  
himself. "Let's go." Pikachu jumped up to ride on his backpack and he got  
up and began to run quickly and silently down the sharp incline toward  
the graveyard. The others followed in single file, Bruno and Erika next,  
followed by the old Team Rocket and their pokemon while Duplica and Misty  
brought up the rear. 

When they reached the bottom and the first of many tombstones scattered  
about the area, Ash slowed down to a more careful walk. No need to wake  
the dead, he thought silently, and with more than a tinge of discomfort.  
He wrinkled his nose. Down here, the stench of the dead was even more  
overpowering and intense. Not so much as the smell of decay but the smell  
of actual *death*. It had a distinctly unpleasant aroma and over the  
years he had learned to recognise it whenever it was present. Stepping  
past yet another gravestone, he was careful not to read the name upon it.  
Sometimes it was best to smother curiosity and stay ignorant. Pikachu  
tightly pressed his small face against the back of Ash's neck. Pikachu  
had never liked places like this either. 

The sound of a crow somewhere overhead cried out forebodingly and he  
sensed some of his companions jump as they were startled. 

"Oh ..." James whispered. "I hate this." 

"Quiet," Bruno shushed. Even the rugged Master of Fighting had a tremor  
of fear in his voice. 

Around them, dark mists seemed to be rising up from the ground around the  
perimeter of the cemetery. With a good imagination, one could call them  
spirits rising from the dead. Spirits that accused them of foul murder  
and promised revenge. Ash wished that he had a horrible imagination. 

Something suddenly hissed, a soft aggressive sound, and Ash immediately  
looked from left to right for the source of the noise. Twin points of   
red light flared and a sleek black-furred body hopped atop a tombstone  
about a dozen feet away from them. Its mouth was open and crimson saliva   
dripped from its many sharp pointed teeth like blood. It was a persian.   
And yet, not a persian either. 

"Stay back," Ash said as he halted their progress and carefully observed  
the hostile black cat with its watchful, glowing red eyes. 

Jessie and James' Persian whimpered. "Gladly." 

"HSSSSSSS!" the black cat hissed. And then suddenly it just leaped down  
from the tombstone and silently scuttled over to the crypt. It soon  
slipped within a crack in the slightly-open stone door and vanished   
from sight. 

"Damn," Ash said as he began to step forward again toward the crypt  
entrance. "I should have got it before it went in." 

"What if it attacks us down there?" Bruno asked doubtfully. "There may  
not be any room to manoeuvre." 

"We'll deal with it when it comes," Ash said, shrugging. 

Finally they reached the crypt door. Long black weeds and vines grew all  
around it like an infested jungle hut. On its stone surface there seemed  
to be some writing on it. Ash looked at it and frowned. 

"I can't read it," Misty said as she walked next to him to take a look.  
Ash looked at her, surprised. She had been avoiding him and he avoiding  
her ever since that disastrous reunion back at the edge of the Western  
Viridian Forest. She looked at him. "You seem to recognise it, Ash, can  
you tell us what it says?" She seemed to be shivering, although if that  
was from the cold or whether she was frightened was hard to say. 

Ash stepped up to it and dusted off the engraved markings on it with his  
hands. "Alright, here's what it says,  
  


"Wielder of Light, wielder of shadow.  
Eternally equal.  
But as thunder defeats water,  
and water defeats rock  
does rock defeat thunder?  
Or does change defeat all?"  
  


After Ash's recital, everyone fell to a tremulous silence. 

Then Misty broke it. "Is that a part of the prophecy?" 

"It seems familiar," Ash said, shrugging his black-cloaked shoulders.  
"But I'm not an expert on the old legends like Valdera is." 

At the name of her twin sister, Misty's blue eyes narrowed. 

"She used to be hooked on the forgotten myths and fantasies. Maybe that's  
why she's supporting the League now. After all, it plays up to her ideas  
about romance." 

"Romance?" 

"Believe it or not, Valdera was a real romantic. She's a lot like you,  
come to think of it," Ash said musingly. 

Misty looked like she was going to get angry, then she just looked away.  
"Well, when we were kids, we were kind of alike. But there was just  
something ... not evil ... but something that made her a lot different-"  
Then she just shook her head. "Just forget it. We should go now before  
the ghosts can get us," she said half-jokingly. 

"Want me to help pull that open?" Bruno asked, cracking his knuckles as  
he indicated the huge crypt door with a nod of his square chin. 

"No need," Ash said as he removed his hood and then calmly stepped over  
to it to pull the thick stone door open. A loud scraping and creaking  
noise filled the dead air around them as it echoed hauntingly among the   
tombstones. 

As soon as it was half-way open, a burst of screeching sounds came from  
within and suddenly there was a tight black cloud of scratching and  
biting zubats forcing its way past them, wings beating hard and painfully  
against their raised arms. Then they were just abruptly gone as the  
blood-sucking bats flew away into the twilight sky above them. 

"Everyone okay?" Ash asked. "Anyone bleeding?" 

After a few seconds of checking, everyone replied negatively. 

"Good. Zubats can transmit nasty diseases that rot your mind after all." 

They all checked again - carefully this time.  
  


  
  


Atop the hill overlooking the cemetery, a young girl in long, black robes  
and clinking jewelry watched the group of people enter the crypt - the  
entrance to Victory Road. 

Pale silver eyes set in an even paler face glowed eerily, as the howling  
wind blew her black-as-death hair around her head and jingled the various  
charms she wore on her body. 

She smiled with full red lips. All was going according to plan. 

"Right, Snap?" she breathed as she pulled the pathetic man's head up  
level with her white-hot eyes. 

Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth slowly, like raspberry jam.  
"Y-Yes, yes, Mistress," he blubbered like the wretched creature he was.  
He had been particularly easy to break. 

Chanelle reached down with her little finger and traced the leaking blood  
with her fingertip. Then she raised it to her mouth and licked it off her  
long fingernail. 

Sweet.  
  


  
  


About the only good thing about the dark, rocky tunnel so far was that  
the stench of death had seemed to dissipate soon upon entering the  
Victory Road. But, just like above, the feeling of it was as strong as  
ever. 

Upon entering the crypt, they had soon discovered that one of the raised  
coffins against the wall had a false back and opened into a musty  
stairway. Of course, that was after trying many other coffins full of  
decaying skeletons. Since then, Ash had the uncontrollable desire to   
have a long immersive bath to wash himself free of the deathly   
impressions - consciously and physically. 

After following the stairway down several levels it ended upon a  
stone-walled tunnel about a dozen feet high and wide, such as that they  
were following in a northerly direction right now. 

Pikachu on Ash's shoulder was yet again using his flash ability to light  
the way forward - more for the others benefit than his own. After all,   
he and Pikachu could see perfectly clearly even on the darkest midnight   
of a month's new moon. 

Misty was silently walking directly behind him. Whether she didn't  
mind him any more or that she was desperately frightened and had to be  
near him was a fact he wasn't sure about. Probably the latter. From her  
actions he knew she hated him. Well, damn her. He didn't need this kind  
of pain any more. He had lived with it for over five years and he was  
sick of it. But why did he have this constant voice in the back of his  
mind telling him that he was lying? 

"Well the Victory Road sure has changed," Misty was saying as she looked  
around. "It was always meant to be the last obstacle to competing in the  
Pokemon League and to be a frightening place. But now ..." She shivered.  
"Ash, if it was like this back then, you probably would have won by  
default." Then she smirked. "That is, of course, if you wouldn't have  
been frightened off too." 

"Ha ha," Ash said with a high dose of sarcasm. "If I remember right,  
*you* were the one most afraid of ghosts." 

"Was not." 

"Was too." 

"Was not." 

"Please," Erika said. "You two are embarrassing." 

Gradually, the tunnel widened until it opened up into the more familiar  
large caverns, ledges and stairways. And pits. 

"Careful with the ground," Ash warned. "If the soil or rocks looks loose,  
then *don't* step on it." 

Persian sniffed the ground in front of him and was startled backward as  
it just suddenly collapsed into a black hole with a roaring avalanche of  
crumbling dirt and stone. Looking inside, it seemed bottomless; a  
never-ending pit of darkness. "Per ... You're da boss, Ash," he said  
frightened. 

"Excuse me?" Jessie and James said as they turned their heads back  
simultaneously. 

"Just kidding, you two are da bosses!" Persian thought about it for a  
while. "No, what am I talking about, I'm da boss!" he said triumphantly  
as he loped forward to catch up. 

"Whatever," Jessie said. 

They were about to climb a flight of stairs at a many-tunnelled junction  
when suddenly Ash heard something. He stopped and concentrated and  
Pikachu pricked his pointed ears upward. He looked to the east tunnel  
where the sound seemed to have come from. He couldn't see much though  
before the shadows rendered anything further invisible, even with his  
exceptional night-vision. "Did any of you hear that?" 

Duplica tilted her head. "What was it?" 

"Someone screaming." 

Bruno looked at him seriously. "You sure?" 

"Yes, I'm sure. My senses have never been wrong when I actually feel  
something." He turned to look at Pikachu who was now half-clutching on  
his left shoulder. "Even Pikachu senses the same." 

"Pika," Pikachu said, cobalt-blue eyes flashing. 

Bruno turned to walk past him. "Even so, it's none of our business. You  
know what our priorities are. One single life won't matter." 

James walked up to him, green eyes blazing, and reached up to grab his  
thick shoulder. "And I thought we were evil! We can't just leave a person  
to die if we can do something about it!" 

"Look, we don't have enough time to go chasing after every  
damsel-in-distress!" Bruno roared, looking down at him. His maroon eyes  
lit up his face showing all sharp-angles and planes. "Now let go of me,  
little man, before I break your arm off." 

James produced a long three-pronged sai knife from his sleeve and  
gestured threateningly. "You just try it, Mister Spiky-head, and you'll  
find something pointy up your bum!" 

Bruno looked about to lose control, but then suddenly deflated. He looked  
away. "Heh. Are you coming on to me?" 

James growled. "Why you-" 

Jessie put a hand on his shoulder. "Forget about it, James. We're not  
here for that muscle-bound moron, but to find those Pokemon League  
lackeys, Butch and Cassidy and maybe even that braided-blue-haired  
bitch." 

"Yeah," Persian agreed. 

James let go of Bruno's shoulder and adjusted the ninja's mask he wore.  
"Fine. But I won't be happy until I can wipe that smile off his hard  
face." 

Bruno shrugged. "We can have a Circle of Masters when this is all over.  
Even if you aren't a Master, I'll oblige you. But for now, let's just  
go." 

But then someone screamed again and it was loud enough to be recognisable  
to everyone. 

"That was Giselle's voice," Ash said darkly as he twisted toward the east  
tunnel. "What the hell is she doing here?" 

"It might be a trick," Bruno said sceptically. 

"No, I'm definitely sure. I just *know* it's her." He turned back to them  
briefly. "I'm going. You people can go on ahead, Bruno knows the way -  
Victory Road hasn't changed all that much in layout - I'll catch up  
later." He turned and sprinted off, black cloak gliding at his back. 

"Ash!" Misty yelled. She turned to follow him and ran quickly. 

"We'll go too," James said, pulling Jessie along. "C'mon, Persian!" 

"Now I know why we failed at being part of a criminal organization,  
James," Jessie said as she let herself get pulled along by her partner,  
long red ponytail gliding behind them like a banner of silk. "You're too  
much of a goody-goody!"  
  


  
  


Erika stared briefly at the backs of Ash and the others leaving them  
behind through the east tunnel. She looked at Duplica, who strangely  
hadn't followed Ash, then at Bruno. "Maybe we should go too." 

Bruno avoided her gaze. "You all just don't have your priorities right. I  
*have* to destroy the Pokemon League. I have to." He looked down at his  
hand and closed it into a huge fist. "I have to..." 

Erika glared at him with her green eyes. "Is this a matter of personal  
vengeance or do you really want to save lives?" 

Shockingly, a tear appeared at the corner of Bruno's eye. "If it weren't  
for them ... Lorelei..." 

"Bruno," Erika said, sadly shaking her head. "I can't imagine what it  
feels like to have the love of your life taken away from you, but I know  
this. Personal vengeance will eat you from within until there is nothing  
left. Look at what happened to AJ. Do you want that to happen to you?" 

"And what if I do?" Bruno burst out in pain, hand threaded through his  
spiky brown hair. "After Lorelei ... nothing matters any more to me.  
NOTHING." 

"Not even your son?" 

Bruno collapsed against the side of the tunnel sobbing. "Junior... of  
course I care about Junior." 

"Then do what your wife told you to do and take care of him!" Erika  
said hardly, without remorse. "You've been a terrible father. I can't  
believe he didn't even know you were his father until he met his mother.  
Just before she died." 

Bruno fell to silence. Then he straightened. "You're right. When this is  
over I'll make it up to him. I will. But first we have to settle things  
once and for all. Or there will be nothing left to settle once the full  
force of the Death Prophecy kicks in. And that could happen any day now." 

"Good," Erika sighed as she brushed some strands of blue-black hair from  
her eyes. "That is a better reason to do this than an ugly revenge." 

Duplica started clapping. "Bravo, Erika. That was a real tear-jerker." 

Erika glared at the blue-haired woman, still in her outrageous black  
dress. "Duplica, there's something severely wrong with you. I noticed it  
just after Misty was cured from the poison." 

Duplica stopped clapping and widened golden-brown eyes at her. "Who?  
Moi?" She pointed to the tops of her breasts showing from her dress. 

"Yes. I know you're naturally the easy-going, laughing type person, but  
lately you've been going too far. It's scary. And you never used to  
interfere with Ash and Misty's relationship before - in fact I thought  
you wanted them two together even more than me - especially more than me  
a couple of days ago. Has anything out of the ordinary happened to you?" 

"I promise I'll have a full check-up with Doctor Giselle," Duplica  
promised, her fingers raised in a vow. "As long as Mistress lets her live  
of course." 

"Mistress?" Bruno and Erika said simultaneously. 

"Oh, silly me," Duplica said, smiling evilly at them. "I just gave it  
away."  
  


  
  


"Please," Giselle's voice drifted down to him from the depths of the  
rocky tunnel, "anyone, help me. It-It hurts..." Sounds of her crying,  
followed by more screams. 

Ash grabbed a loose flapping fold of his dark cloak and started to run  
even faster, his boots crunching the gravel beneath into dust and smoke  
at his speed. "Hold on, Pikachu," he said to the side. 

"Pikapi," Pikachu said determinedly as it clutched tightly on his  
shoulder. 

And then the tunnel opened up into a large stone-walled chamber and Ash  
stopped running with a screeching of rubber upon granite. He stared in  
appalled shock. 

Giselle was laying down in the centre of the chamber on her side.  
Horrifying streams of crimson red were pooled in a thick puddle by her  
body. Intermittently, she moaned in complete pain and agony, tears  
streaming down her beautiful face, pale with hurt. Her white-lab coat  
looked half-ripped up as if someone had been violent and taken advantage  
of her. 

Ash ran up quickly, feeling extremely sorry for her. He had to see if he  
could at least heal her. She wouldn't like the way he did it - his  
abilities were more suited to death than life - but it was a way to save  
her at least. He crouched by her side, Pikachu still clutched to his left  
shoulder and reached down to her. "Giselle, it's me, Ash. I-" 

Giselle looked up at him with surprisingly clear, brown eyes. Which then  
flashed white. "Why hello there, Ash," she said, her perfectly-made face  
smiling up at him. "I bet you didn't know I could do ... THIS!" Taken  
completely by surprise, Ash yelled as Giselle grabbed him by the throat  
and sent a painful burst of 'something' into him. It screamed through his  
nerves causing excruciating pain. Pikachu yelled too. 

What was it? Ash desperately thought. Ground-based elemental energy? From  
*Giselle*? 

Giselle smirked red lip-sticked lips at him as she pushed herself to her  
feet and stood up, all the while clutching his throat with one hand. Then  
she lifted him up into the air, choking him as she looked up at him, long  
black-brown hair floating behind her as if coursing with power. 

"That was almost too easy!" she shouted with arrogant laughter. "Hard to  
believe you have an infinite level!" 

A short slender form of white materialised behind Giselle and rapidly  
gained colour. Ash choked in surprise upon seeing that girl he had saved  
back at Cinnabar Island take form. 

"Nice work, Giselle," the girl said, her pale silver eyes examining him  
like a toy she was playing with. "The League Master will be pleased." 

"Chanelle?" Ash coughed, as he clutched Giselle's wrist of the hand she  
was lifting him up with. "What's this all about?" 

The girl looked at him and chuckled in express amusement. "Don't you  
recognise me by now, Ash? Really now, I know you're obtuse, but you can't  
be that dense." 

He looked her over. Now that she mentioned it, she did remind him of  
someone, but who? He was sure that he had never met anyone who looked  
like her before. 

"Oh, I suppose it is sort of hard to guess who I am," the girl considered  
as she noticed that he still hadn't figured it out. "That was after all,  
an academy award winning performance I pulled," she said, fluttering her  
eyelashes at him. "Perhaps you'd recognise me with a few more wrinkles  
and white hair?" 

There was a pregnant silence. Then Ash roared, "AGATHA." 

"Finally," Agatha said as she played with one of the charms on her black  
robes. "I sometimes wonder why my dear grandson Gary needs you so." 

"You old bitch, what have you done to Giselle?" Ash shouted. 

Agatha's pale silver eyes shone in her deceptively-young face. "I suggest  
you speak more politely to your elders, young man! Giselle, seal his  
electric abilities and show him who's the queen bitch around here!" 

"Yes, Mistress," Giselle said, her brown eyes flashing a malevolent   
white. 

But before she could do anything an arctic flash erupted from the   
entrance of the enclosed stone cavern and a beam of cold shot into   
Giselle's arm. Giselle screamed as her arm froze into a block of ice   
and was forced to loosen her grip and elemental hold upon Ash's neck.   
Taking advantage of the situation, Ash elbowed her in the forearm and   
escaped her hold to drop on to the floor, coughing and choking blood,   
while Pikachu clutched tightly at his neck, almost falling off from   
pain. 

Agatha turned to the cavern's entrance where a tall woman in a flowing  
blue cloak was standing, both her arms still raised and steaming  
with cold mist. Eyes shining as blue as the ocean, her long red hair  
floated in the air behind her. 

"YOU!" Agatha screeched. "You were supposed to be eliminated by Duplica  
by now! You and the rest of them!" 

Ash finished coughing and backflipped back to Misty's side. "Duplica?  
What have you done to Duplica you old ghoul?" 

Agatha looked at the two of them and then abruptly laughed. "Oh, how  
ironic is this? You dare to ask me what *I've* done to Duplica? You two?  
Excuse me if I laugh at the ridiculousness of the question!" 

"What are you talking about?" 

"Enough chatter, now-" She suddenly jerked her hand up, catching a knife  
that was thrown directly at her chest. She looked down at it and narrowed  
her pale eyes. She looked up. "WHO? Who would dare?" 

"Prepare for annihilation!" Jessie said as she stepped by Misty's side. 

"And make that double!" James said as he appeared by Ash's side. 

Persian hissed as it leaped out to land in front of their legs,  
vertically-slit eyes glaring aggressively. 

"For the crime of turning us into white-eyed slaves..." Jessie began. 

"We shall punish you!" James finished as he flashed another knife. 

Agatha had to physically restrain herself to keep from laughing. "Oh,  
it's just you two failures! When both of you head-butted each other into  
unconsciousness back at Cinnabar, I just cracked up laughing! It was your  
fault that they noticed me and I had to go with you all in the first  
place!" 

Jessie's sinister, midnight-blue eyes darkened in fury. "How dare you,   
you little brat! I'll teach you manners your parents never taught you   
with a good spanking!" 

"BRAT? Brat am I?" Agatha screamed, a raw nerve rubbed by the name. "I'm  
more than half a century older than you!" She jerked her arms to the sky  
and there was a boom not quite unlike thunder. A wind began shrieking  
around like a banshee and rocks and stones lifted into the air in a  
sudden mini-tornado. "Do you know who I am, little girl?" she asked   
acidly, her voice amplified with gruesome power. "I am Agatha, the third   
of the Elite Four! The Master of Spirits!" They had to step back at the   
massive elemental force that she had raised. 

"Jessie, you had to get her angry," James accused. 

"Oh, shut up James!" Jessie said, whomping him on the head. 

Agatha looked at Ash. "Just to make things a little more interesting, I'm  
going to summon back two of your friends! How about that?" 

Ash just rubbed his nose with the back of his glove and got into  
position. "Old Ghoul, Sabrina said that to stop the Death Prophecy from  
completing we had to kill the keepers of the gates. She mentioned you  
specifically. All I'm saying is that I'm not going to feel the slightest  
tinge of remorse when I take you out!" 

"Sabrina, ay?" Agatha growled. "That traitor! But forget her, you have to  
greet two of your old friends!" She began chanting, her girlish voice  
suddenly without emotion.  
  


"Night beyond light, Darkness beyond Twilight."  


The cavern fell to rapid darkness, even with Pikachu's Flash ability  
lighting up the room. 

"Death shall receive thy due."   


An appalling groaning and screaming sound such that they had never heard  
began clouding the air all around them. 

"With this crimson offering, I appeal thee."  


She slashed her arm with her fingernails and dripped long splashes of her  
own blood to soak the stone floor. 

"Bring thy tortured souls from damnation!" 

The stone before her feet erupted as two pairs grasping hands burst  
forth, both as pale as dead flesh. 

"UNHOLY RESURRECTION!"  


Ash and Misty stepped back in horrified revolt as the reaching hands grew  
into arms and then finally with an explosion that smelt of fire and  
brimstone, two figures in tattered purple cloaks and ninja-garb stood  
before them. Purple veins easily visible through their pale-white, almost  
transparent dead flesh with a stink of decay about them, Koga and Aya  
stood in silence, each brandishing long, curved silver katanas. 

"We'll take Giselle," Jessie, James and Persian hurriedly said.  
  


  
  


"Mistress?" Erika said as she stepped back, a green glow surrounding her  
hands as she summoned her staff and twirled it once, creating a gust of  
air to blow her black hair back from the side of her face. "Who's  
controlling you, Duplica?" 

Duplica stood at apparent ease, hands behind her back, long tealish-blue  
hair flowing over her shoulders. Her normally light-brown eyes had  
brightened to a silver-white colour. "Controlling me?" she asked in  
amusement. "I'm controlling myself." 

"Bullshit," Bruno said, his hands raised in a martial arts stance. "Who  
is it? We don't want to hurt you, Duplica. You're not yourself." 

"And who says you can even hurt me?" Her smirk grew wider. 

Erika decided to knock her unconscious and then find the reason for her  
mind-control once she had been incapacitated. As it was now, Duplica was  
too much of a threat to just let go free. She gathered feeling within her  
hand and then sent it surging outward from her palm directly at the  
blue-haired woman with a sparkle of powder. 

"Sleep Powder? Erika, you can do better than that," Duplica said  
patronisingly. She suddenly transformed into a pidgey, brown and white  
feathered wings flapping rapidly to blow her sleep powder back at her. 

Hastily, Erika spun her staff around to absorb the powder back into her  
body before it could affect Bruno by her side. 

The pidgey changed smoothly back into a five-foot-eight voluptuous,  
blue-haired woman. "Uh, uh!" Duplica said, with a shaking of her  
forefinger. "That wasn't nice." Faster than Erika could blink, Duplica  
flashed red into a large lizard-like charmeleon and backhanded her with  
its clawed hand, powerfully smashing her backward into the wall.  
Her jaw closed painfully at the impact and she crumpled to the ground in  
pain. 

Bruno stepped forward to combination punch the charmeleon, but missed  
when it changed into a humanoid-shaped hitmonlee with spiky feet which  
spun around and kicked him in the back, also sending him crashing into   
the wall. He collided into it face-first, causing him to sickeningly   
bounce off with a burst of blood as a vessel on his cheek was punctured   
by a sharp edge in the rock. 

Without turning around, the hitmonlee transformed back into Duplica with   
her arms folded. "Now do you understand the power of change?" she asked  
them with one brow lifted. 

Erika was hunched over on her hands and knees on the ground, blue-black  
hair covering most of her face. "Don't be so arrogant!" she cried as she  
leapt to her feet and struck forward with her staff, intending to knock  
her in the belly. She had to attack her while she was in human form!  
Maybe she was vulnerable! 

But Duplica didn't even attempt to dodge the blow as it struck her with  
the force of a tree falling down. To Erika's shock, it didn't even faze  
her, and worse, Erika's staff had gotten stuck in Duplica's belly as if  
it had glued itself on. "I think I should show you, just what being a  
Change Master entails," Duplica said as she twisted to the side, jerking  
Erika's staff out of her hands as it was still attached to her, and then  
snapped it in half with an impossible twisting of her stomach. Then she  
changed into the boxing hitmonchan and gave three swift punches into  
Erika's own stomach before finishing her off with a haymaker right. 

Erika landed hard on the tunnel floor on her shoulder, blood slightly  
leaking out of her mouth. She spat it out on the ground. This was utterly  
ridiculous! How was it possible to defeat someone who could change their  
shape to any form at will? Not only that, but manipulate her entire body  
so it was impossible for her to get hurt! 

Duplica reverted back to her original woman's form and cocked her head to  
the side. "I think Mistress is in trouble. I'll have to kill you two off  
quick now." She looked down at them with her glowing white eyes. "Say  
goodbye."  
  


  
  


"I-I can't believe they died," Ash said, stepping backward in distress. 

Misty was still staring at the two slowly approaching dead Poison  
Masters, horrified. "They-They mustn't have gotten out of South Lavender  
Rebellion Base before the thunder struck." She swallowed in a throat  
suddenly gone dry as cardboard. 

Ash looked sharply at her, black hair whipping out of eyes abruptly  
glowing with an inner-light. "What do you mean, thunder?" 

She swallowed again. "I was going to tell you the truth but I must have  
forgotten in all the excitement these past few days. It-It wasn't Valdera  
and Brock who destroyed South Lavender ... it-it was you." 

Ash closed his eyes and Pikachu on his shoulder did the same. "I  
suspected as much but to actually hear the confirmation... I-I..."  
Then to Misty's complete distress Ash spread his arms wide in a gesture  
of surrender toward Koga and Aya. "Let them kill me, Misty." He  
swallowed. "I have to die," he abruptly decided in a voice blank of  
emotion. 

She thought she had lost the ability to feel anything for him, but at  
this blatant attempt at suicide she realised now that she had thought  
completely and utterly wrong. Because anger was stronger than sorrow, she  
clung to the rising waves of fury that rose when she thought of *her* Ash  
dying, clung to it like a lifeline. "How DARE you," she hissed. "How dare  
you throw your life away like it's a broken toy! You're nothing but a  
liar, Ashura. A liar and a hypocrite!" 

Ash looked at her with dull brown eyes. "But don't you see? There's ...  
something about me. Something evil inside of me. I can feel it Misty. I  
can feel it! And it scares me... to know that I can be capable of killing  
you. Even you!" He looked away as if he was not worthy to look at her.  
"Best for me to die first." 

Misty could only shake her head, seeing and feeling tears cloud her  
vision despite the wave of fury that she clung desperately to. "You were  
the one who said that suicide was a waste," she whispered in a voice  
tight with accusation. "And I believed you. If you die ... then I PROMISE  
you Ashura, that I'll follow you to Hell straight after!" 

"What?" Ash said, whipping back to her. "I'll never let you die!" 

"Well then, you'll have to watch over me then, won't you?" 

"Damn you, Misty!" he shouted in frustration. He blew some locks of black  
hair out of his brightly-glowing eyes and turned back to the Poison  
Masters who looked just about to attack. Apparently they had been trying  
to wait for them to attempt the first blow for some reason, but had now  
given up and were now forced to do the bidding of their summoner.  
"Pikachu ... Shadow Blade!" Ash cried as he morphed his Pikachu into his  
long ebony katana just in time to block Koga's opening slash. 

Misty felt her heart explode in happiness. But that was short-lived as  
the tall, dead Aya, struck down at her with her own katana, tattered  
dark-green hair floating around her like a streamer. Misty dodged to the  
side and spun away, summoning her twin ice blades into her fists. Then  
deciding that range of weapon would better serve her against a Blade  
Master, she merged her two knives together at the hilt and lengthened  
each blade to form a double-bladed ice lance. 

Especially against Blade Masters who were also *Poison* Masters.  
Undoubtedly one little scratch or nick with either of their blades would  
result in a quick, painful death. 

The battle commenced.  
  


  
  


"They've finally started to defend themselves," James said gleefully as  
he spotted the once-unmoving Ash and Misty, now furiously locked in  
battle with the two zombie ninjas. 

"Eyes front, stupid!" Jessie yelled and James screeched as he jumped  
into the air, just narrowly getting missed by Giselle's Earthquake which  
zigzagged across the stone floor with earth-cracking force. 

Persian growled as he leaped up to knock the doctor over, but Giselle  
spotted him and erected a wall of hard rock in front of her with a  
raising of her arms. Persian rebounded ineffectively off it. 

Then the wall of brown rock shattered as Giselle punched through it,  
sending a hail of sharp shrapnel over them in a painful, cutting rain. 

"I just hate Pokemon Masters," Jessie said as she desperately shielded  
her precious face with a knife. 

"She's a Pokemon Master?" James asked as he cartwheeled away, dodging   
as many rocks as he could. 

"Perrr.. you tell me what a human is, to be able to wield the power of  
the elements as well if not better than any pokemon can," Persian said  
matter-of-factly. "We're just lucky that she hasn't thrown out her own  
pokemon. Three against one Pokemon Master suits me fine!" 

"Marowak, go!" Giselle shouted. 

"Crap," James said.  
  


  
  


Agatha watched the battles raging in front of her with eyes like a hawk.  
She especially watched Ash and Misty's battle with the dead Koga and Aya.  
Any opening she deciphered and she would let loose a spell of death that  
would drop them like flies. Who cared if her grandson wanted him alive?  
She just felt like killing them all of a sudden. 

"What you have done is forbidden." 

Agatha rapidly spun around to find a tall woman in a twilight-blue  
cloak standing before her with long dark hair that sported a green streak  
through its length. "Why, Sabrina dearie," Agatha said airily. "Nice of  
you to teleport in just when I learned what a traitor you are." She  
raised her arms to the sides, palms face-down, and black spirits began  
rising around her like smoke. "For the crime of treason against your  
Lord, the sentence is ... well I'm sure you know what the sentence is." 

Sabrina lifted a fist from behind her back. It shimmered and glowed as a  
triangular blade of yellow psychic energy spewed forth from her knuckles.  
But then the half-foot-long psychic knife curiously darkened to a black  
colour. 

"So you want to play hard with me, girl?" Agatha said spotting the colour  
of the blade. "Well, I can play just as hard." She summoned her own black  
psychic blade within her left fist. "Now that I'm younger, I can finally  
play knives with you, dearie," she said, smiling girlishly. 

The two began their own dance of death, blades of psychic death stabbing  
and parrying. Except, while Agatha's face showed a depth of emotion,  
Sabrina's stony features offered none.  
  


  
  


"Butterfree, you hear that?" Laselle asked as she continued to forge her  
way through the dark tunnels. She had been wandering hopelessly lost now  
for quite some time so anything, *anything* that promised to be anything  
other than normality was excitement to her. Unless of course, the  
excitement happened to be ghosts. But now she had heard a rhythmic sound  
of cries and thumps like a huge battle going on, somewhere in the tunnel  
in front of her. 

"Free," the dark-coloured flying pokemon agreed as it flew slightly  
behind her left shoulder. It seemed kind of hesitant... 

"Well, then, let's go see what it is," Laselle said as she combed some  
long tendrils of brown hair from her face and then began to run, but  
carefully spotting for rocks and loose sand on the ground before her. She  
didn't want to make any noise *and* fall into a bottomless pit either. 

"Duplica, fight it!" 

Laselle's heart skipped a beat as she recognised Mistress Erika's voice.  
They were all down here? The tunnel she was following finally gave way to  
a more open area of the caverns with entrances of other tunnels and  
stairways going every which way upward. She slowed to a more cautious run  
and then pressed her back against the wall of the tunnel just before it  
opened up into the junction. "Quiet, Butterfree," she whispered as she  
carefully took a peek around the corner. 

A huge, red charizard was hovering in the air in the centre of the cavern  
with slow flaps of its huge demonic wings. White eyes flashed upon the  
face of its dragon-like head and tongues of flame were spitting from its  
nostrils. Its long powerful tail was snaking around in the air below  
powerful arms and legs, claws slowly opening and closing. Shockingly, the  
charizard spoke with Duplica's voice. "CHARR ... Fight it? I'd rather  
fight you," she hissed. 

Laselle quickly scanned the area. There, crouched on one knee on the  
ground by a stairway of rock that led up to the upper-caverns was a  
green-cloaked woman who looked horribly beaten up, shoulders rising and  
falling in deep breaths. Her shoulder-length black hair was mussed up and  
damp with sweat and blood as red as her hair-band was leaking out of her  
mouth. But her grass-green eyes still looked powerfully bright with her  
spirit. Mistress Erika! And over towards the eastern entrance of one of  
the many tunnels was a crumpled figure in a maroon cloak ... Master  
Bruno? 

"Duplica, you're not yourself! Please, don't do something that you'll  
regret ... or force me to do something I'll regret!" Mistress Erika  
shouted up at the huge charizard. Golden flashes of light were emitting  
from her fists and a green aura had begun to rise around her body. 

Duplica? Laselle thought again. It couldn't be! Why would Mistress  
Duplica be attacking Mistress Erika? It wasn't right! 

"It is to laugh!" the charizard snorted sarcastically. It reared its  
dragonish head back and inhaled swiftly causing a rushing of air in the  
cavern. Then it leaned its head forward and opened its fanged mouth.  
"CHARRRRRR!" There was a massive roaring of fire as a huge tongue of  
flame rolled down toward the crouching Grass Master. 

Then Erika powered up with a flash of green ki sparks and thrust her  
hands forward. "SOLAR BEAM!" she shouted, just as the green energy  
suddenly flared and a brightest yellow beam of sunlight flared from her  
palms. The red and yellow elemental attacks collided in midair with an  
ear-deafening crack of sound. 

Laselle shielded her eyes as dust flew everywhere, clouding the whole  
huge cavern with a thick, acrid cloud of debris. Coughing, Laselle waved  
her hands to blow away the dust trying to get into her mouth and eyes  
with Butterfree helping with gusts of its wings. However, it wasn't until  
a few minutes later that the flying clouds of sand and dirt managed to  
settle enough for her to see. 

She gasped. The huge red charizard, that was apparently Duplica, still  
hovered in the air, flapping its wings lazily, unharmed. Mistress Erika  
on the other hand lay still on the floor, green cloak singed and some of  
it burning. 

"Charr ... fire defeats grass ... game, set and match," the charizard  
growled. She began to rear her head back again preparing to launch   
another devastating Flamethrower. 

"NO!" Laselle screamed, tears running out of her eyes. She got up and  
desperately ran toward them. "Duplica ... please stop! Please! Don't kill  
Mistress Erika!" 

The charizard stopped inhaling and then turned to look down at her, white  
eyes narrowing as it steadily beat its wings in the air. "Laselle ...  
what are you doing here," she said roughly. 

"Please!" Laselle begged as she stood in front of the fallen Erika. "I  
don't know why you're fighting everyone, but you have to know it's  
wrong!" 

"Wrong?" she growled, flames flickering from her snout. "EVERYTHING IS  
WRONG! Wrong for ME! For once I'm going to do what I want! ME!" 

"But you don't want this!" Laselle pleaded. "The Duplica I knew was  
friendly and always laughing! She was so nice and caring! Always sticking  
up for Ash and others!" 

The charizard closed its eyes and surprisingly, tears leaked from within  
them and steamed when they touched her blazing-hot skin. "ASH. You're  
right..." she exhaled softly. Then she opened them and roared a cry that  
echoed everywhere within the cavern. "It's why I'm doing this! The  
Mistress promised!" She reared her head back and began to inhale again.  
"I HAVE TO DO THIS!" 

"Duplica, no!" Laselle cried. 

"Free!" her Butterfree chirped as it flew above her head. 

Desperately she looked up. "Butterfree, you're my only hope! Please stop  
Duplica..." 

It looked up sadly at the charizard. Then to Laselle's utter surprise it  
landed and began to change shape, almost as if it was like Duplica  
transforming. Wait, it was transforming! The butterfree smoothly grew  
larger and changed colour until it had changed form to a large bipedal,  
turtle pokemon. A Blastoise! 

"STOIS!" the blastoise growled as it aimed its huge cannons on its shell  
and shot twin pillars of hydro pump. 

Duplica-Charizard screamed in shock and pain as the water attack smashed  
into her, knocking her back. 

"Butterfree???" Laselle exclaimed. "What's happening?" 

Duplica-Charizard was spinning crazily out of control in the air until  
she flapped her wings once to steady herself. "Char! So it is one of  
those!" She swooped to the ground and transformed into a spiky-backed,  
yellow dog-like jolteon. "JOLT!" she shrieked as she ran at them, sending  
a massive bolt of bright crackling thunder. 

"BLAST!" the blastoise cried in pain as the electricity smashed into it  
and electrocuted it powerfully. Then smoking, it fell backward and  
smoothly transformed into the spiny, sandshrew about to launch an  
earthquake. "SHREW!" it shouted as it smashed the stone ground with its  
claws and sent the earth attack onward. 

Laselle could only watch in surprised fascination as the two began a  
bizarre fight of transforming and attacking. It was a battle of  
type-advantage, each changing to a pokemon that was super-effective to  
the other. 

She could only say one thing. 

"Butterfree, what the hell are you?"  
  


  
  


Koga crouched slightly, long katana held to the side. His pale-white face  
had several slash marks on it from near hits by Ash's sword, but no blood  
flowed forth - his dead body had no blood within it. Clumps of spiky  
black hair regularly detached from his skull and fell to the floor with  
bits of decayed flesh clinging to them. 

Ash stood directly opposite about a dozen feet away upon a slightly  
slanted incline on the rocky floor of the cavern with his own  
black-as-night katana held behind his back by one hand. His dark cloak of  
equal colour wavered around him in the air by the unnatural wind that was  
blowing around them. "Koga, can you hear me? Is that really you?" he  
called out to the tattered, purple-cloaked ninja. 

A horrible moan came out of Koga's mouth in an appalling parody of  
speech. There was a tortured look in his red eyes as if he was constantly  
in pain from the fires of hell. Then with a flap of the tattered purple  
cloak, Koga grasped the hilt of his katana in both hands and began  
charging forward, point of the sword facing to the rear. 

Feeling overwhelming disgust at himself for defending himself against a  
man who should rightly be killing him, Ash correspondingly grasped his  
own long black katana in both hands and leaped down to meet him, black  
cloak gliding behind in his wake. 

Slash, slash, slash. 

Afterward, both Masters stood, slightly crouched both facing  
away each other, katanas held tightly. Then they turned around. Ash  
watched in pity as both Koga's arms abruptly detached themselves from his  
body, then his legs, and the torso fell to the floor, limbless. 

"I'm sorry, Koga," Ash said with a shake of his head. 

Suddenly the pieces of the body stirred and then reconstructed themselves  
back into a standing Koga. 

"Not good," Ash said as the ninja resumed his charge silently. 

Meanwhile, Misty and Aya were locked in a desperate battle of clashing  
ice lance and katana. For a while it seemed as a stalemate as Aya tried  
offensive strikes while Misty defended with her spinning double-bladed  
weapon. 

Then it changed when Misty twisted nimbly, avoiding a diagonal overhead  
slash from Aya's sword, but chopped off an inch off the side of her long  
red hair. Growling in anger, Misty continued on in a spin move, blue  
cloak flapping, and sheared through Aya's waist with the blade of her  
lance. As she completing the spin, she roundhouse-kicked the torso from  
the bottom-half of the body, sending half of Aya flying away, dark-green  
ponytail gliding away like a kite's tail. Unfortunately, the lower-half  
of her body levitated after her and she rejoined in the air into a whole  
person. Executing a backflip, tattered purple cloak floating in the air,  
Aya then landed smoothly in a crouch and dashed forward to the attack all  
over again. 

Someone's back touched hers and Misty almost screamed in fright until she  
realised that it was only Ash. "This is getting us nowhere, Misty!" he  
said, his cheek touching hers. She felt overwhelmingly warm at the  
contact. He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the  
cavern where that little bitch, Agatha and ... Sabrina? ... seemed to be  
locked in battle atop a raised area of flat rock. "See that?" he  
continued. "I'm guessing that if we drop Agatha, then her power over all  
the people she's controlling will get cut off. With Sabrina keeping her  
busy it should be easier to take her by surprise." 

"Good idea," Misty breathed, as she turned back to Aya who was leaping  
toward them. "But what should we do about Koga and Aya? We can't exactly  
get to her with these two slashing at us. Take our eyes off them for an  
instant and we'll be cut down by their poisoned weapons." She blew away a  
strand of red hair that had gotten stuck to her mouth. 

"Okay, here's what we'll do..."  
  


  
  


Agatha parried yet another blow of Sabrina's Psychic knife, sending black  
sparks everywhere, and spun and rotated into a revolving slash aimed for  
the woman's neck. However, before the knife could hit, Sabrina's cloaked  
form flashed white and she disappeared. Agatha shifted around with a  
clinking of charms, expecting her to reappear behind her back but only  
found air. She turned again and looked up. "Coward," she said softly in  
her girlish voice. "You should be scared of one of the Elite Four. You  
never even made it Sabrina, dearie." 

Sabrina floated in the air, a golden glow surrounding her form as she  
psychically held herself up, long dark hair wavering around her head as  
if she was underwater. "It was not my destiny to become one of the  
elite," she said without sentiment. "And it was not your destiny to  
reverse your age with the power of the prophecy." 

"Was it not?" Agatha said with false surprise. "Then how come I am  
standing here barely fourteen years of age?" 

Sabrina began to glow brighter, eyes flaring evilly. "And so destiny  
reasserts itself back to the path it once was. PSYCHIC!" She thrust her  
hands palm-first and sent down a blazing ball of pure psychic power. 

"Darkness give me the power of LEVITATION," Agatha chanted and her long  
ebony hair floated around her head as dark vapour arose from the ground  
to lift her into air. The psychic attack missed and struck the rocky  
ground instead with the power of an avalanche. The whole of the cavern  
shook with violence and rocks began falling from the roof. 

"Your destiny is nothing but a meaningless shambles!" Agatha continued as  
she prepared to meet Sabrina in the air, black robes floating around her  
like a clinging shadow. 

"I think not." A black shape reflected from Sabrina's twilight eyes. 

"What?" Agatha said in surprise as she twisted around in the air. 

Misty had just thrown her black Starmos pokemon to cut Koga and Aya in  
two and as it curved upward toward her, Ash had jumped to land on top of  
it, black katana held behind his back in preparation to cut her down. 

In panic, Agatha, threw her palms toward him. There was no time to chant  
an offensive spell before the Shadow Master reached her with his damn  
sword. Only one thing to do. 

Invade his mind. 

Desperately, she threw her consciousness forward to merge with his. It  
was like total complete blackness such as she had never seen before.  
Swirling shadows that seemed to not only absorb light but shun it. What  
kind of mind was this? She pressed her hands forward, frantically seeking  
an edge, any edge to pry up to get at the man inside. It was no use. She  
would have to go in blindly. 

Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. 

She found herself standing in a dark limbo. All around her was infinite  
blackness. Before her stood Ashura, covered in his black hooded-cloak,  
silent and still. Although who was to say it was him when none of his  
features were visible? And the eyes were an evil crimson red... 

"You want to violate our memories, bitch?" the cloaked figure suddenly  
growled, and Agatha felt frightened - more frightened than she had ever  
felt in her entire life of over a hundred years. 

She had to get away. Had to, the mind violation had gone all wrong! But  
when she tried to leave his mind, black steel shackles abruptly erupted  
from the ebony floor and shut around her ankles with a loud merciless  
clang. She screamed. 

The black-cloaked figure floated forward toward her and she screamed  
again as she tried to run away, forgetting about the shackles in her  
total fear. 

A hand as cold as death gripped her chin painfully and he jerked her face  
up towards his. Even at this close distance she still couldn't see his  
features, only the blood-red eyes that burned brighter than the flames of  
an active volcano. 

"You want my memories ... you got them." He lowered his head and forced  
her into a kiss. It was not a lover's kiss, but a brutal kiss of  
punishment. She screamed into his mouth but he only seemed to enjoy it as  
he thrust his tongue into her mouth. Shockingly she felt a hint of  
pleasure at this action and she didn't know if that terrified her even  
more than the man. 

Blackness. Darkness. Shadows. A memory. 

The little boy, two years old, cowers in the darkness of a basement,  
hands covering his cute face as he rolls himself into a ball. 

"YOU ARE NOT MY SON!" the blue-haired man screams in accusation. 

"Please, Daddy..." the little boy pleads. 

The man steps forward and viciously kicks the little boy. The boy shouts  
in pain but does not cry. Perhaps that fact is the one that enrages the  
man even more. 

A beautiful woman with long brown hair runs down the stairway and screams  
when she sees what the man is doing. "Please s-stop," the woman sobs.  
"P-Please, it's only been you!" 

The man rounds on her, hands in fists. "You are nothing but a whore," the  
man says in quiet anger. 

And that is worse because loud anger is quick to explode and dissipate,  
but quiet anger is the deadly anger, long to appear and long to take  
place. 

"Look at him. Where did he get that black hair? Not from you. Not from  
me. He is a bastard." He steps over to the little boy again and this  
time, jerks him up with his hand. Beautiful light-brown eyes the colour  
of brandy stare at him. They enrage him. A bastard should be ugly, he  
thinks. "You are not my son," the man repeats and then brutally punches  
the child in the stomach. The boy collapses but this time he does not cry  
out. His young face is calm as a still lake. 

"No, don't!" the woman shouts as she runs over to grab the man's arm. 

The man backhands her across the face and knocks her into the wall of the  
basement. "Whore. This has been a long time coming." He approaches the  
sobbing woman with tightly-clenched fists. 

The basement is filled with screaming.  
  


  
  


More and more dark memories savage Agatha's mind. Until she can no longer  
bear it. But still they loop and loop and loop and she gibbers  
mindlessly, shouts nonsense, saliva leaking from her mouth. 

The black-cloaked man with red eyes steps back from her with a smile on  
his face. He removes his hood and blows a strand of black hair from his  
crimson red eyes. 

"Death becomes her." 

He laughs long and hard.  
  


  
  


"No!" Misty screamed as she saw Ash suddenly fall off Starmos before he  
could cut Agatha down. Agatha began to fall down too, with him, as she  
suddenly seemed to have lost her levitation spell. 

Misty dashed forward, blue cloak and hair streaming behind her and leaped  
just before Ash could strike the rocky ground. She grabbed him in both  
arms and then dived forward into a sideways roll breaking their fall. 

Agatha had no such luck and landed brokenly upon the hard rock, pale  
silver eyes open in death. It seemed as if she had died even before  
striking the ground. 

Misty desperately looked down at Ash. He was breathing slowly, thank the  
heavens. What had happened? What did Agatha do to cause herself to die  
and knock Ash unconscious? 

As Starmos hovered down over her head, red jewel flashing in worry, a  
crack of thunder by her side startled her. She looked over to see Pikachu  
revert back into a black electric mouse from katana form. It seemed that  
he was unconscious too, blue eyes closed as if sleeping. 

Sabrina floated down and landed silently. She watched them   
dispassionately. Then she shook her head. "There is no need to worry. He   
will just sleep for an hour. After that he will be awakened and fine." 

Misty looked over to the side where Agatha's body had landed. Her eyes  
widened as it suddenly began aging rapidly before her. The ebony hair  
faded to white, while the skin wrinkled and then she was the Agatha that  
Misty knew before in the Pokemon League. But the aging didn't stop there  
and the body yellowed and rotted until the flesh had gone and it was a  
skeleton which then just turned into dust. 

She sat up to look for Koga and Aya. Where she had last seen them were  
nothing but two piles of tattered clothing. Two white spirits blew past  
her, startling her, and she thought she heard 'Thank you' before they  
dissipated into the air. 

Jessie, James and Persian leaped up on to the large flat rock where she  
lay clutching Ash. James had Giselle in her arms, unconscious. 

"Phew," James sighed. "I'm glad you got her before she," He nodded down  
at Giselle in his arms, "could get us." 

Then at the far end of the cavern where the entrance was, she spotted a  
very tattered-looking Bruno, Erika ... and Laselle? all walking tiredly  
toward them. Bruno was carrying an unconscious Duplica. 

Sabrina walked up to her and dropped a letter. "Here, this is for you.  
And you'll also find two more of your companions trapped in the western  
cavern. Now goodbye." Her from shimmered white and then she was just  
gone. 

Erika and Bruno jumped up on to the rock, and after Bruno laid Duplica  
down next to them, he helped Laselle climb up. A curious black  
amoeba-shaped pokemon sat on her shoulder. 

For a moment they were all silent. Then Laselle said, "I'm glad that you  
managed to do whatever you managed to do, Mistress Misty. Mistress  
Duplica almost had us there. If it weren't for Butterfree - I mean,  
Ditorion - here to keep her busy, we might all have been ashes by now." 

Misty raised an eyebrow as she looked at the pokemon sitting on her  
shoulder. "Ditorion?" 

Laselle looked embarrassed as she rubbed the back of her head with one  
hand and played with a tendril of her long brown hair in the other.  
"Turns out that he's the seventh Master Pokemon and that he's been spying  
on us ever since the beginning. But uh ... he ended up liking me so he  
decided to join us instead." 

Misty shook her head in irony. Then she narrowed her blue eyes as she  
looked at the letter that Sabrina gave her. She unrolled it.  
  


Dearest sister, 

If you wish to learn the secret of our birth then come to the old  
League Housing at the Indigo Plateau City.  


Don't be late. And come alone.   


And don't show this to Ashura.   


~ Valdera  
  


*** End of Part 11  
  


Next Episode: Valdera VS Misty. Lance and the power of Dragons. Suzie and  
Brock finally reunited. Jessie, James and Persian VS Butch, Cassidy and  
a mysterious new pokemon. Ash and Misty's past revealed. And of  
course ... the revelation of Ash and Gary... 

And just who is the eighth Master Pokemon? 

Don't miss the final conclusion of ... Pokemon MASTER. 

_________________________________________________________________________ 

POKEDEX  
_________________________________________________________________________ 

SHADOW PIKACHU  
Type 1 - Shadow  
Type 2 - Electricity 

Attack : Lightning Boil  
Type : Electricity / Water  


Pikachu grabs on to the victim and begins charging up the  
victim with electricity. The heat then boils the victim from within. 

Attack : Electric Absorption  
Type : Electricity  


The power to absorb low-level electricity attacks into a pikachu's body  
for its own personal use. 

Attack : Lightning Slash  
Type : Electricity / Normal  


With a slash of its tail, the Pikachu can send a blade of electricity  
roaring through the air that may cut the victim into two if it so wishes. 

_________________________________________________________________________ 

Notes: 

Cheers to Rhionae for pre-reading this monster and helping me out  
with the grammar and spelling! 

Gah. I never expected I would ever be writing 'Ash gets Misty', (or is it  
Misty gets Ash?) but it just suddenly came up and it just felt right to  
put it there. I'm sick of the two of them always getting interrupted  
after all ^_^;;. But now they can both suffer the consequences of their  
actions... 

By the way, some of you may have noticed a 'Todd' soldier getting  
brutally eaten by a Forbidden Sandshrew back in Part 9. He was meant to  
be the Todd Photographer guy that never existed on our network. Here he  
was called, Snap, so that's the continuity I used. Todd never existed  
here so he was just given a horrible, cheap death ^_^. 

Anyone notice Agatha's spell style? I sort of got it a bit from Lina from  
Slayers. Although I've only seen the first episode of that. I loved the  
way she casted, "Dragon Slave" though. 

Too much talking? Probably. Especially on the sappy conversations ^_^;;   
I know I can get carried away sometimes. But there *is* a lot of action   
in this one to make up for it. I hope. 

As always tell me your thoughts!  
  


Ace Sanchez  
Emails : jsanchez@bigpond.net.au  
: aceywacey@hotmail.com  
: acey@i.am  
WWW : http://i.am/acey  
: http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey


	12. Requiems

Ace Sanchez presents: Pokemon Master Part 12

It is the beginning of the end .

Eyes. Glacier-blue eyes staring. Staring at her. Demanding, expecting.  
The tall blond-haired, bearded man that was her father stood before her,  
while her dark-haired mother sat to the side avoiding her gaze.

"Being a part of this gym means training for a mastery of water."

She looked away.

"Our family has always trained under the Cerulean banner. Are you going to be the one member of our line to selfishly abandon tradition?"

Uncomfortable silence.

"Well?"

When the answer came it was almost a whisper. "I-I just don't feel the same about ... the waters as... everyone else. Are you gonna punish me for that?"

"If it's not water, then what do you feel an affinity for?"

"I ... I don't know," she mumbled.

"If it weren't for Misty, I'd think you weren't even one of the family"  
her father stated, shaking his head. "But lately you've even begun to influence even her a little. It's got to stop."

Her eyes narrowed, but inside she was hurting. "And maybe I don't even wanna be one of the stupid Waterflowers ..."

He sucked in his breath and shot to his feet, eyes as cold as frozen water. But before he could do anything, the doorbell chimed.

"You think it's the other girls, back from swim practise?" her mother asked doubtfully.

"No, too early." Surprisingly, her father smiled a little before leaving to get the door, and the girl felt more than a little disconcerted.

Minutes later he came back but with an older man in a white lab-coat that matched his hair.

"This is her, Professor," he said, pointing her out.

The white-coated man looked at her and his brown eyes seemed interested.  
"I see. Well, young lady, my name is Professor Oak and you're a very interesting case..."

Blink.

...

And Valdera awoke with the suffocating feel of helplessness within her throat. The futon below her was damp with her sweat despite the coldness of the dead air within the old room. Outside, through the cracked window on the opposite wall, the city wind rattled the glass and shook the crumbling walls of the deserted multi-level apartment building as if it were a house of cards. Plaster splintered from the ceiling and fell with soft thuds upon the wooden floor with intermittent shakes. No surprise though, as the whole block of these apartment buildings in this part of the city had been condemned for so long, no one even remembered it as being anything else.

Her breathing was harsh, laboured, before finally she began to relax and let out the pent up aguish. She brushed a lock of blonde hair from her eyes. She was no longer a young defenceless girl to be pushed around by everyone. Never again.

Nonetheless, she could feel a different kind of push now.

Mistaria.

But she would take care of that soon enough.

A sudden rasping chuckle broke the silence of the room, startling her.  
"Be quiet girl and maybe we'll let you live after we're done."

Valdera sat up on the futon and watched as two large men in ragged clothing fully entered the room from the half-open door. Silly of her not to have detected them sooner but the nightmares always left her vulnerable. Though that was no excuse - she knew what the area was like around here - even with the supposed mass gathering of the people at the palace all ready to celebrate the reforming of the world. With no regular patrol, the old housing sector had become a nest for the criminals and rapists. But of course that was also the reason she had chosen this place as their rendezvous. She wanted no League interference when her sister finally arrived - and arrive she would. The curiosity would bring her - she knew her sister as much as she knew herself.

But first ... some entertainment. She smiled slowly.

Their eyes were bright with lust as they looked upon her and she realised that she still wore no clothes. She didn't care - she had found out long ago that her body was just another weapon she could use. Though frankly, scum like this didn't deserve even the sight of it. So she pushed herself to her feet and the gloominess of the room was suddenly extinguished as she let a bright light flare out from her body - as bright as the sun before it had become shrouded in the shadow surrounding the earth.

The men fell back, crying in surprise, blinded, stumbling backward like bugs startled out of their nest by an upturned rock. Stepping forward,  
she tossed her loose hair back over a slim shoulder with a quick motion of her head and gestured her hand over her body. At the movement,  
vapour-like light formed her thin white robes over her skin to conceal her nakedness.

"She-She's a Master!" one of them exclaimed, now in total fear when before they had been smug, powerful over an apparently weak woman. Still blinking from the blinding light, they pushed at each other as they each tried to retreat through the door at the same time.

Valdera waved open her right hand and strands of light-like chains erupted vertically from the floor blocking their exit, weaving together a web of entanglement. "Leaving so soon?" she asked with an evil twist on her lips. "Tell the Forbidden in Hell I said hi." A ball of brightest-white electricity crackled briefly in her palm before she sent it hurtling at the back of the nearest man's head with a flick of her slender wrist. There was a sound not unlike a popping watermelon and the headless body toppled over to clutch jerkily at his friend's back. The remaining man stopped clawing at the light chains and turned around,  
screaming when he saw what she had done to his companion. Like a weak woman, he screamed till his voice turned hoarse.

"Oh, shut up," she said as she walked over and kicked his loser friend's dead body off of him with her bare foot. He immediately fell to silence though his mouth was still gaping open and gasping for breath as if he were a dying fish. She put her hands on her hips and stared down at him with a tilt to her head. "Tell your other friends that tonight this area is off limits," she said softly. She shifted her glacier gaze to his late-friend meaningfully. "And you should know that people aren't what they seem."

She left him cowering there as her form dissipated to light and drifted outside down on to the street by the entrance of the apartment building. She reformed herself. The air was murky, like a fog stained with shadows, almost as if the clouds had sunk from the heavens. A slight wind blew past ruffling the hem of her robes and she looked up at the complete blackness of the sky, past the tall tops of the city buildings around her. And maybe they had - the protective dome Lord Garick had erected over the whole of the plateau was even darker and more impenetrable than the covered sky behind it. Not even the tall, softly glowing lamp posts lining the city streets could fully illuminate the whole of the plateau. Not anymore.

But she had herself. With but a thought, her form grew brighter and it chased away the gloominess like water washing away mud. The sudden brightness startled a couple of scantily-clad streetwalkers leaning against a nearby videophone booth. She shook her head as the girls made warding motions with their hands and fled. Little rattatas feeding off smelly garbage cans in the alleyway of the building she had just come from hissed at her and scampered deeper into the alley.

The air smelled dead. But she was used to it by now. She let her eyes wander along the street. Another one of the apartment buildings would have to suffice as she waited.

And she wondered if Ashura would have liked the way she handled things.  
She could be brutal too. Much more brutal. It was in her genes after all.

Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of violence and some inappropriate language.

Pokemon Master

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.

All parts of this story may be found at the following address:  
www.users..au/acey/pokemon.htm

Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,  
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.

Part 12 - Requiems

The dark forest and surrounding ruins were quiet.

Kneeling down on one leg, the tall woman with braided dark-blue hair studied the large boot print embedded in the damp grassy ground. She was tilting a lamp she held in one hand as she did so for better visibility,  
while with the other she was rubbing the ground, sensing with her fingers.

Suzie narrowed her eyes. Despite everything, Brock's presence still affected her strongly - strong enough to enrage emotions in her that,  
although completely different now, were at least as powerful as the ones she had thought she was finally over. Her hair tickled the right side of her face from where her long bangs covered it. She ignored it.

"Looks like they all entered the Plateau through the Victory Road tunnels," Rainer said matter-of-factly as he peered down the incline,  
still mounted upon his white and red horse of flame. Uncomfortable for the rapidash especially, as it neighed painfully, stepping from side to side from the agonising liquid aura of the blue-cloaked Water Master above it.

Cassidy, also mounted atop her horse next to her partner, Butch, wrinkled her upturned nose in disgust while she looked across at the gloomy graveyard. It was just barely visible past an outcrop of trees and collapsed stone columns. "I always thought that placing the graveyard of those who died in the wars at the exit of the escape tunnels was a little perverse."

Suzie stood up with one quick movement and dusted off her black overcoat,  
her long braid settling down her back. "Let's all not forget who caused the wars to erupt in the first place," she said with an underlying hint of steel. She grasped on to her rapidash's fiery mane with one hand and jumped to hoist herself on to its flame-proof saddle.

Rainer nodded as he looked back at the two League Generals with a hostile glow in his blue eyes. "That's true. In fact, Suzie, I don't see why we should even bother with these two no-ability humans. Coupled with the fact they were once part of Team Rocket..." He said the last with no small measure of contempt.

Butch grasped on to the hilt of the broad sword sheathed at his belt underneath his grey over-cloak. "Fool! You should be thanking Giovanni's shade for what he returned to humankind-"

"But in so doing, the short-sighted fool wrecked not just Indigo Insula but the whole planet," Suzie interrupted flatly. "Enough of this, it's all ancient history." She looked over Butch and Cassidy with her dark eyes before returning her hard gaze to Rainer. "I chose this alliance and they served me well to provide League properties. As long as their goals do not interfere with mine, I see no reason to break it." With that said,  
she wheeled her rapidash toward the cemetery down the sloped forested hill and took off in a burst of flame.

Thousands of feet below, within the darkest depths of the Victory Road caverns, a lone woman sat at the very edge of a sheer cliff-ledge letting her slender legs waver carelessly above a fathomless drop. Worn free about her shoulders, strands of red hair that seemed the colour of blood in the darkness was pushed back from a smooth cheek by a gloved hand. Pale aqua eyes surveyed the dangerous height below her as if transfixed by the view. Her cloak covering her dress was as dark-blue as a midnight ocean.

Misty turned her head and looked up. The massive mile-high pillar formation they were climbing seemed to reach forever into the shadows above. But somewhere up there was the entrance to the surface of the city. They were indeed close. She dropped her blue gaze and returned to staring at the depths below her. And to think.

In years long past, the subway of overhanging subterranean cliffs,  
tunnels and pitfalls served as the final impediment to competing within the Pokemon League Championships. A penultimate test of endurance and survival with nothing but the company of one's pokemon for defence beyond themself in dangerous enclosed passageways filled with traps and puzzles... not to mention hostile pokemon.

She placed the warm bowl down on the rocks by her side, no longer feeling any sort of appetite. It had been a while since she could be alone in her thoughts like this. When the group had stopped for a short break she had wandered off further up the narrow ledge to take her meal in isolation.

She could still remember when there was a movement to forego the Victory Road altogether - especially during the unfortunate year when not just one hopeful contender perished within the black caverns, but several at the same time. But the present Elite at that time refused. Ever since the initial induction of the Pokemon League - so long past now that few records remained of that era - it had been a ruthless custom to weed out the less-determined and unskilled of the challengers.

But dangerous and unsafe as it was then, after the apparent haphazard excavation of the tunnels pending its collapse during the Dark Pokemon Wars, now it seemed even worse. Crumbling stone cliff-side ledges,  
collapsible tunnels, not to mention uncountable fathomless pits rendered invisible by a thin layer of dirt riddled throughout - the present Victory Road was an apparent death-trap to all but those who have had prior experience in navigating its grim hallways.

However, right now, what puzzled her the greatest was her twin sister's message delivered to her by the psychic, Sabrina. Her exact feelings on her sibling were also unclear. On the one hand, the fact that she remained in her apparent allegiance with the League was detestable,  
but on the other she just couldn't find it in her to hate her own sister.  
Of course, Valdera's past relationship with Ash, that she had recently discovered, raised extremely heated emotions within that she was still uncertain of. He certainly got around, she thought bitterly. For her it had been different - after the break up she had just lost all semblance of desire for another partner - no matter what Ash may think. He could think her some whore who spread herself around, but she just couldn't care anymore. She mustn't care.

Nevertheless, for all her denials, she now knew that unquestionably she would be devastated at his loss if he was somehow killed in this hell-hole of a mess she had gotten him into. Even if her conscience should rightly stay clear in that he would have been involved if it weren't for her anyway, the thought of his suicidal manner to some insane reason still threatened to make her feel such a pain in her heart that she thought she would die inside.

She clasped the small prickly badge attached to the breast of her cloak between index finger and thumb. Suddenly she didn't feel like being alone. She detached it and held it in front of her face, its small red jewel gleaming as blood-red as her hair in the shadows ... as blood-red as a ruby at midnight. Her very first pokemon when she had caught it as a staryu, fishing on that fateful day long ago.

"Starmos," she whispered, letting the black star pokemon go by her side to float in the air as it enlarged to its regular form.

The ruby eye shined in greeting as it grew larger, in proportion to its ten razor-sharp, triangular-pointed limbs. Ever since its second evolvement it had no longer been capable of making sound at all - it preferred instead to communicate by the gleam of its jewel.

"I-I don't know what to do."

Starmos glowed softly in sympathy and moved closer to touch its face to her shoulder. She moved her arm then stopped. The closer she got to the sharp-bladed star, the more she would be hurt.

How ironic.

Further down the rocky ledge and around the face of the grey mountain wall, most of the rest of the group ate in relative silence with the soft orange glow of a campfire burning softly. The flames wavered sluggishly, illuminating the six figures enough to just barely render each other visible in the dim underground cavern.

One of them, the lean, athletic form of a young man dressed all in black loose clothing and boots, sat on the ledge of the pathway, looking down the cliffs into the oblivion of extreme height, staring down at the shadows below. By his right side, wrapped in his cloak, lay an unconscious woman, long teal-blue hair splayed about her smooth face,  
pretty features twisted in the anguish of her apparent nightmares.

Ash tiredly rubbed one of his eyes with the back of his left hand. Pain like steel anvils clanged within his temples, along with a nauseating feeling within his belly. It seemed he had contracted that old 'morning sickness' again, ever since he had awakened from the battle with that witch, Agatha. He didn't know why he was suffering the symptoms of the malady now, but it didn't bode too well with what he was already suspecting.

Bruno was sitting down next to Erika and his man, the solidly-built Hikaru, several feet away with his back to the stony wall of the mountain that the ledge wound its way up.

"What's the matter, Ashura?" Bruno asked in seriousness as he continued to eat out of his bowl with a pair of chopsticks. "Giselle's cooking not agree with you?"

A very tired-looking Giselle in a dirty and ripped lab-coat that was once pristine white, but was now tattered as a rag revealing patches of skin and underclothes, was sitting down in the centre of the ledge fiddling with the cooking pot. "Are you trying to be funny?" she asked without looking up, still managing a patronising tone despite her obvious weariness.

Bruno just stared uncomprehendingly.

"No, you wouldn't," Giselle said, shrugging her tangled brown hair from her shoulders as she started to pack the supplies and rations back into the small travel pack.

Erika had already finished her meal and had been staring at her for some time, green eyes attentive. It was apparent she was just waiting for a chance to speak her word with her. "Okay, Giselle. Come clean. You do  
have the elemental gift, don't you?"

Giselle aimed an automatic frost-filled glare at her little sister where she was seated behind her upon a small boulder along with Bruno's son,  
Junior.

Laselle flinched and pulled on a lock of her own long hair in nervousness. "I didn't tell them. Honest!"

"Free," the dark butterfree agreed shakily from atop her shoulder. The seventh Master Pokemon seemed to now have an affinity for the form it had used to fool them with.

Rubbing his raw neck, Ash coughed. "Actually, it was quite a giveaway when you did this," he said indicating where she had left raw red marks on his neck when she had choked him with her hand. Giselle had awoke just after he had and it seemed that she had no memory of what exactly happened. Until now, no one had spoke of the incident as they all continued on their way. Ash briefly explained to her who Chanelle actually was and what she had done.

"That little bitch!" Giselle said as she saw what she had done to his neck when he had finished explaining. "I'm really sorry about that." Then she looked at her sister. "But how come you weren't captured like the rest of us?"

Laselle shrugged within her torn green forest-cloak. "I dunno."

The dark butterfree's red eyes flashed in annoyance. "Free, free, free!"

But Laselle only blinked. "Huh?"

Pikachu had been listening intently though as it sat upon another boulder in the centre of the path. "Pikapi, pikachu pika pika," he translated with a few gestures of his small black paws.

"Pikachu says that Ditorion interfered with the spell enough to let it and Laselle teleport somewhere else within Victory Road," Ash explained as he rubbed his forehead. His headache was getting worse.

"But it couldn't do the same for us?" Giselle said dangerously.

The butterfree sweated.

Erika was still staring hard at Giselle, her eyes bright like emeralds. "Giselle, you're changing the subject."

Bruno intervened as well, the hard planes of his face unyielding as stone. "You know the Rebellion was underpowered compared to the League,  
especially in Masters. If you had the ability, why did you hide it? We needed as much people with the gift as we could get..."

Giselle broke down and closed her eyes. She looked uncharacteristically vulnerable as she leaned back on her calves and placed both palms on the rocky floor. "I-I just couldn't," she said slowly, head lowered as her long tangled hair fell down to brush the sides of her pale cheeks. Then she opened her eyes and stared at them, her brown-eyed gaze filled with pain. "I never even wanted this so-called gift, you understand?"

Bruno looked a bit confused as he scratched at his long brown hair worn in spikes. "But ... why? How can you not like having strength? Strength that is so desperately needed to defend yourself and others?"

Giselle lifted her palms and stared at them. "As far as I'm concerned,  
humans should have never been able to wield the element powers of pokemon. I mean, look what we've done with it." She spread out her hands.  
"Look! We're like children with handguns!" She drew up her knees and hugged them, burying her face within them. "I've denied my 'gift' ever since it began to surface when I was sixteen. When they were desperately looking for people with the gift to counteract Team Rocket's 'Pokemon Masters', I hid mine. I didn't want to use it for war - ever."

Ash was looking at Duplica's sleeping face. He wondered what demons she was facing in her sleep to cause her to have such pained expressions. He hoped she would be okay - whatever Agatha had done to her was probably severe. "I guess that's why you became a doctor instead," he said out loud. He began pulling on his gloves.

Abruptly, Giselle let out a self-depreciating laugh. "Of course, I'm not as moral and saintly as all that. I mean, when I saw all those people with even a hint of the abilities who were levied into the lead armies dying, I was scared out of my mind. Besides, I don't even know much about controlling it."

"But tending to the wounded and dying needed as much bravery or even more." He shook his head and began to stand up, lifting up Duplica's inert body wrapped in his black cloak to carry her on his back. "Anyway,  
we've rested for long enough. We better go before any Forbidden begin to show up." He arranged Duplica's arms to wrap around his neck.

"Pikapi," the small electric mouse agreed as it leaped down from its boulder and ran to stand by his ankle.

"Hey, look!" Laselle suddenly said, pointing to something almost camouflaged against the stone face of the mountain. "It's a pokemon!  
I haven't seen many wild ones for a while."

Ash glanced with some curiosity to where she was pointing - he hadn't even sensed it. It was a graveller clutched against the wall, its huge stony arms flexing from time to time as they extended from its three-foot-tall, boulder-shaped body. Looking closely at it, he abruptly felt a sense of ... wrongness about it.

Pikachu growled low in his throat and dropped to all fours, black fur and jagged tail standing on end.

As if that were a signal, Bruno, Erika and Giselle all stood up in alarm with Junior, Laselle and Hikaru also rising to stare at the pokemon warily. Food was forgotten as bowls dropped to shatter upon the rocky ledge. "What's wrong with it?" Bruno asked, his eyes fixed on the graveller. "I have some affinity for Rock Pokemon ... but I can't feel anything from it."

Pikachu began to step closer, but Ash wordlessly stopped him from approaching. "I think we're about to find out why there's been so few wild pokemon around lately..."

The graveller suddenly flashed brightest white as if it were going to evolve. But then it began to squeal horribly as if it were dying from a searing pain. Jerking madly, the whiteness wavered and finally darkened to a menacing blue-black. Two spots of red flared within the darkness and when the glow faded, an ebony graveller remained. Now with a feral hiss erupting from a mouth full of sharp stone teeth, it prepared to charge at them with scrapes of its hugely-clawed arms.

"I don't believe it," Erika said, taking a step back with an appalled expression on her face. "The wild pokemon have been changing to Forbidden? I thought they all came from the gates. How is that possible?  
What does it mean?"

Growling at them, the graveller suddenly leaped, claws outstretched for the kill, but Bruno stepped forward and chopped it out of the air viciously with one huge arm, shattering the black pokemon to pieces. Dust and shrapnel flew everywhere. "I don't know, but it can't be good," he said, rubbing his hand.

"Watch it," Ash warned as the pieces of the graveller scattering around his boots began to stir and rejoin.

Bruno cursed and then kicked most of the rubble off the ledge and down below with a few swipes of his heavy boot. The clattering of rocks echoed far, far below until they could no longer be heard. "Damn things are hard to kill."

But the narrow rocky ledge before them began to rumble and vibrate -  
first softly, then harder and harder. Bits of rocks and stones started raining down from the roof of the immense cavern and from the face of the mountainous pillar they were ascending.

A shrill erupted from Giselle's coat pocket and she quickly removed her handheld detector device from it to study the readout.

"Detector says uncountable ground element forces at two miles below sea level, south-south-west," she called out over the noise of the earthquake. "That means an immense gathering at the base of the pillar.  
They're pokemon, but the detector can't calculate their levels.  
Definitely Forbidden!" She paused as she deciphered something else on the small screen. "Wait, there's human-based elemental power detected as well... Rock-based."

Ash was immediately alert. "You, Laselle, Junior and Hikaru said that Brock escaped and was after us now, right?" His eyes flared with inner-light. "Misty!"

"I'm here," a soft voice said from above. He looked up the ledge to see ... her ... come from around the corner of the rocky wall, stepping carefully on the trail at a sufficient distance away from the edge to risk falling. He let out a slight breath of relief, then instantly felt anger at himself for doing so. He shook his head to clear the conflicting emotions. He couldn't let himself think about her now. After all that had happened he was once again at a loss to know exactly where he stood with her or she with him. Best to take the middle-ground and pretend nothing had happened.

Breaking his train of thought, a white persian came pouncing up from the narrow trail below followed by two black-garbed ninja, veils unfastened from their faces in their haste to clamber up the slope. They had been resting further back on the trail on look-out duty.

"Black graveller everywhere," Jessie reported.

"And they don't look nice!" James added.

"Can you get my pack, please?" Ash asked Misty as he settled Duplica more comfortably upon his back.

Misty looked at the both of them for a second with unreadable ice-blue eyes. Then without saying anything, she stepped up to the wall where his small brown pack was leaning, and after wrapping her cloak about the waist to let it hug her slender, curved frame like a robe, she smoothly slipped the straps through her free arms.

Bruno stepped by his side. "Do you want me to carry Duplica instead?"

Ash looked the maroon-cloaked Master over. Despite his large, muscular frame, the way Bruno seemed to nurse his left arm as if it were sprained,  
and the various cuts on his tired face, he didn't think it was such a good idea. "Don't worry about it, Bruno. You and Hikaru shouldn't strain yourselves." He turned up the corner of his lip slightly. "Besides, it was Duplica here who beat you up in the first place. How can I be sure you won't want revenge?"

Bruno's eyes lit up, but then died down when he realised he had taken the bait. "Very funny, Ashura." He rubbed his arm and looked away. "If I was fighting seriously, I might have stopped her myself. But I didn't think it was wise to go all out against one of us, so to speak." He smirked inwardly. "I admit, I underestimated her. I had no idea the girl's ability could be so powerful."

"Do I sense a bit of softness there?" Erika asked impertinently as she walked over to Ash's other side and smoothed her shoulder-length,  
blue-black hair back with a hand before rethreading her red band back into it.

Bruno just grunted.

"We'd better go now," Misty finally interrupted. In her hand she held a wooden torch that she had lit from the campfire. After tossing her head once to shake her hair back off her shoulders to fall down over the backpack, she moved to go first, ends of her blue cloak rustling by her feet. "I'll lead us this time. I still remember the way through Victory Road."

"Suit yourself." Ash shrugged and began to follow while Erika, Bruno,  
Giselle and her sister, as well as Junior and Hikaru, stuck to his back in single file to keep close to the mountain's side of the ledge.

Bruno noticed that Jessie and James weren't following. "You two coming?"

The white-haired panther pokemon that was Persian, uncoiled himself from the wall and hissed in indignation. "That's three," he said in his feline voice. "And no, we're keeping to the back. We'll continue the rest of the way by ourselves."

Ash shrugged although he wasn't surprised. They seemed paranoid about something as always. Of course, with the way the world had changed over the years and their apparent profession, it wasn't really that surprising. They continued on, leaving the mercenaries to their own devices.

Though he couldn't deny that he was worried about them. He chuckled slightly. He had grown soft again like when he was a kid - always caring too much. It was dangerous to care too much.

"Garick... Garick... Garick..."

The dome of shadow that encompassed the whole of the massive city swirled high above like oil upon a canvas of midnight. From the tall balconies of the immense, white-marbled Indigo Palace - the centre of the plateau and the city - it seemed as if one could just reach up and feel it. It was,  
after all, one of the tallest and largest structures in the whole of the city, even when most of the skyscrapers had still been standing.

But the form cloaked and hooded in dull grey that stood upon its highest peak was deathly still as it looked down upon the thousands of people gathered on the streets all around the palace walls like ants, chanting his name. Only the sheer freezing upper winds caused movement - his cloak rippled upon his lean athletic frame almost as if it were alive.

"Garick... Garick... Garick..."

A sudden flapping noise.

"My Lord." Behind him, the newly-arrived man in a long dark-blue cloak stood still waiting for his acknowledgement. With one hand, the newcomer threw his hood back, revealing darkest black hair worn in longish,  
flaring spikes over a handsome blue-eyed face. "Agatha has been killed."

But he did not turn around - only remaining in his study of the peoples who had come to prepare for the final stage of the prophecy to unfold.

"Aren't you worried? After Lorelei, that leaves only Brock and myself -  
if Brock is even still alive. We've lost contact with him." A pause. "And you, of course."

The grey-cloaked figure standing at the precipace of the balcony gave no sign of movement. Instead there was a roar of a thunderclap in the distance. Black lightning began to flash in the sky. The sheer upper-winds grew harder, so hard that the marble of the palatial balcony they stood upon was groaning from the strain. "So ... Ashura has already arrived?" The voice was low, breathed just loud enough over the shrieking wind to be heard.

"I don't think so. They must still be within the Victory Road tunnels.  
The lesser Masters and soldiers posted at the Road's city entrance haven't reported anything yet." A thoughtful pause. "I'm doubling the guard and tell them to be alert on the watch - we'll stop those rebel vermin from interfering - even Ashura can't fight the whole of the League's Masters and army. I'll find Valdera and-"

"You sound scared, Lance," he interrupted.

Lance growled. "I'm not scared. Just prudent. Look at how many of the other major Masters we've already lost. Not to mention two of the Elite Four." He stepped by the League Master's side and followed his gaze down at all of the people gathered about the palace. "Listen to them. The people chant your name. They're depending on us to reform the world back to what it once was before the dark wars. Don't forget that with our deaths, that can never happen."

The grey-cloaked figure turned to him, though as always, his face could not be seen within the cowl's depths. One red eye flashed. "Don't double the guard. Let them come in."

"But-"

"Just do as I say. And tell the sentinel to comb the city for them once they do arrive. I want to know where Ash and Misty are immediately.  
As for their companions ..." He suddenly laughed at an ironic thought.  
"They can kill them. They are unimportant. It shouldn't be too hard."

Lance stiffly replaced his hood back over his head, casting his face in darkness. "Understood."

Another flap of wind and he was gone.

And Gary remained to look out over the chanting people. As an artist that makes mistakes and so a clean slate must be forged... or at least, that is what everyone thought.

After all these years he would finally realise the dream.

We would finally realise the dream.

Misty held the torch aloft in her left hand as she jogged around the curve in the rocky ledge. She was careful to keep close to the wall and as far from the cliffside as possible. Behind her, she could hardly hear the soft thumps of Ash's boots on the stone as he followed, even with Duplica on his back. Pikachu, meanwhile, scampered on all fours by his left boot, jagged tail raised upright. She remembered back when she was fifteen and they met the guide in the Fuchsia Woods who had told them a lot about masking their footsteps so they were not so loud. Among other useful things - especially with all the walking they did in those days.  
Afterward they had this big competition about who could sneak past Jigglypuff at a full sprint... but of course, she was the one who ended up with the markings on her face - Ash had been much better than her.

"What are you smiling about?" Ash suddenly asked.

She spared him a backward glance and frowned without slowing her jog. "I was not smiling."

"Yes, you were?"

"How could you even see my face from there?"

"When you turned the corner, I saw the corner of your mouth."

"What are you doing, looking at me?"

"You're in front of me?"

She looked back at him again. "Look, I wasn't smiling alright?"

Ash blinked. "Well if it's that important, okay, you weren't smiling"  
Then he shut up as if remembering something and his features blanked.

She smirked inwardly. He probably forgot that they weren't supposed to be talking. At least like they knew each other.

Suddenly she felt the ledge vibrate and rumble beneath her feet again.  
She almost stumbled when it happened, and looking down, she realised that the stone they were treading on seemed to have grown rougher ... and bumpier. Like uneven lumps in the granite. "This ledge, do you think there's something weird about it?" she ventured, if only to change the subject.

He was silent for a while with only the sounds of his even breathing behind her. When the answer came it was in a puzzled tone. "You're right,  
there's something about-"

"Pikapi!"

"Pikachu!" She heard him skid to a stop so she stopped too, her boots sliding a bit before they grabbed purchase upon a lump of stone. As she turned, she raised the torch higher, brightening more of the darkness and revealing that the ledge they had been following had grown narrower so that it was only three or four feet wide beside the pillar's sheer face.  
She placed her palm upon the slanted wall, suddenly feeling wary of the extreme height they were at. One mis-step and they could be tumbling to their doom.

Ash was kneeling slightly where Pikachu seemed to have gotten a front paw stuck in the rocky ledge.

"What's the holdup?" came Bruno's rough voice from all the way in the back.

"Pikachu's stuck," Ash said, as he tried to balance Duplica's inert body upon his back while simultaneously examining the rocks near his pokemon's paws.

"Pika," Pikachu agreed in a worried tone. His blue eyes were narrowed at the lumpy floor of the ledge as if he suspected something.

Erika stepped into the light behind Ash and went to kneel when she suddenly shrieked as she lost balance, almost toppling over the side of the cliff and into the bottomless darkness below. Fortunately, Bruno steadied her with a hand from behind. Breathing hard with her green eyes widened in shock, she looked down at the lump she had been standing on.  
"The floor moved!"

Ash immediately looked up at her. "What?"

In the back of the group, Laselle screamed. "The ledge! It has eyes!"

Misty frantically shone the burning torch down. The ledge - the ledge was shifting! Uncountable points of red light suddenly flared from the rocks beneath their feet, lighting up the darkness even more as if glowing bugs were crawling all over the floor. Bugs ... Misty clapped her hand over her mouth to stop the scream of terror from escaping her lips.  
She looked closer. No, they weren't bugs, they really were eyes. She didn't know if that were worse than if she thought they were bugs.

"Shit!" Giselle's voice shrieked from somewhere behind Bruno. "Detector says we're ... we're standing on a nest of Forbidden!"

"The whole damn ledge is a shelf of graveller!" Ash shouted as he desperately punched the rocks by Pikachu's paws to free him with a cracking of stone. Dust flew in a cloud around his fist as the rocks he smashed seemed to roar in pain. But Pikachu was now free to scamper up Ash's arm and attach himself to the top of his head, blue eyes frightened.

Misty stumbled as the ledge shifted beneath her feet and all at once,  
sharp-fingered stone claws erupted from the floor all around them, trying to grasp at their boots. The ledge was a cloud of noise with Bruno,  
Junior and Hikaru shouting, Giselle yelling out elemental coordinates while Laselle still hadn't stopped screaming.

And then the graveller ledge began to come apart. The bottomless depths of the cavern revealed itself from the holes opening up beneath them like crumbling cheese.

"Everyone stop shouting and go!" Ash yelled as he forced himself to his feet and shifted Duplica upon his back. "Misty, come on! Just don't look down!"

They began to pick their way over the rest of the narrow ledge, jumping across in a deadly game of hop-scotch. But it was too late - it was coming apart even more. In fact, the ledge in front of Misty had become so riddled with holes that it was impossible to go any further and they had to stop - they were trapped. The gaping bottomless depths below them grimly invited their deaths.

"Ash, the no-element rule, is it still in effect?" Bruno suddenly yelled.

"I think the Forbidden know we're here - we're stepping on their heads!"

"All I needed to hear!" the Fight Master growled. There was a maroon flash and an explosion of stone shrapnel and dust as Bruno smashed his hard fist into the mountain's wall caving a section of it down. "I knew there was something behind this!" came his triumphant shout. "Everyone inside!"

They all just made it into the newly-opened cave when the ledge outside finally disintegrated, leaving everyone panting heavily within the opening. Inside there was even less light if that was possible and there was a musty scent to the air that suggested a certain degree of ancientness. Fortunately the scant flickering light of Misty's torch brightened the oppressive darkness somewhat, though it still left most of them seeing each other as only dim outlines when not directly illuminated by the flame.

Misty looked around, swishing her torch this way and that as she tried to see where they had ended up in. The cave seemed to continue on into the heart of the stone steeped at a slight upward direction. It was indeed ancient with disuse as the smell of the air suggested - cobwebs lining the rounded stone walls and roof while a fine layer of dust covered the floor. She sucked in her breath as small bugs and spiders fled from the brightness of her light.

"My God, that was close," Hikaru breathed as he stepped to the crumbling opening they had come through and peered back through the way they had come in, out the side of the subterranean pillar. "That was good thinking, Master Bruno-"

Shockingly the large Fight Trainer shouted in pain and he was thrown back violently to smash into the wall behind Bruno. He bounced sickeningly off like a wet sack to land unconscious upon the floor of the tunnel.

"Hikaru!" Bruno yelled, instantly running to his man's side.

Ash was already standing to the ready despite the burden of Duplica upon his back. Erika, Junior, Giselle and her sister took a step backward in preparation.

The air was deathly quiet with nothing audible but the slow ragged breathing of everyone present and the occasional crumbling of rock. Misty held the torch aloft to brighten the crumbling cave entrance so they could all see what had thrown Hikaru backward with such force.

And then the ground began to rumble as if the whole subterranean pillar was starting to shake apart. Amid the roaring of stone breaking and shattering, a piercing sound as shrill as a whistle became evident, first low, then higher and higher as if it were some unholy crescendo. The air grew colder - as cold as the arctic wind - and then as powerful as one too. A strong breeze had kicked up from the tunnels behind them as if the all the air was being sucked out of the passages and out through the opening in a powerful vacuum. Misty reached with one hand to stop her long hair from blowing forward over her eyes and face, while the wind pulled at her and tugged at her cloak forcefully. Everyone's clothes flapped violently in the sheer wind. Flying dust and stones filled the air so that it began to get hard to see.

Her torch blew out. Darkness.

"Flash." When Pikachu lit up the tunnel again, they could now see what was causing the wind and the noise.

Zubats. Forbidden Zubats.

Hundreds - no, millions of them - they poured in through the opening as if it was the spout of a bottle being emptied, spilling a total haze of darkness. There were so many, none of the small bats were individually distinguishable, instead it was as a tight, glowing blue-black cloud that grew larger by the second, spreading toward them through the constricting confines of the tunnel as if it were reaching out to embrace them.

Other than the noise of their movement, they were silent - what caused the noise was not the usual screech of such pokemon, but the immense beating of all the billions of wings all flapping violently. It was as if they were a swarm of locusts charging a ripe harvest of wheat.

With them as the wheat.

"Uh, it stands to reason that if wild pokemon have been evolving to Forbidden, that there would be this many zubat," Erika pointed out dryly as she unsuccessfully tried to keep her green cloak from blowing about in front of her from the force of the wind.

"There's a time for scientific study and a time for running," Giselle told her impertinently. "But now's the time to run, I think."

Laselle was already following her advice, pulling a confused Junior after her and further into the tunnel. "Smartest thing you've said so far, big sister!"

They ran.

"Fire Blast!" Cassidy ordered in desperation.

Her rapidash was screaming in fear but it obeyed her anyway as it let loose a cross-shaped projectile of melting flame from its mouth at the clump of crimson-eyed rocks charging directly at her. But all the fire seemed to do was turn the gravellers red with heat as they continued to press on.

Butch wasn't having much luck either as he tried to hold another group of them at bay with spiralling fire spins from his own mount behind a boulder. Sweat poured from his forehead in thick rivulets, dampening his aqua hair. Only Rainer and his vaporeon seemed to be holding their own with great blasts of blue liquid from their hands and mouth respectively.  
Suzie herself, though, looked unperturbed as she sat upon her mount letting the Water Master do all the work.

They had been making quite good time through the tunnels upon their horses but when it had opened up into the main caverns, just in sight of the main pillar leading to the surface in the dark distance, an earthquake had suddenly shook. Black gravellers from all around had jumped from above down into the shallow canyon they were walking through as if waiting in ambush upon the higher ledges of the various stone boulders, walls and walkways.

"We're losing too much time," Suzie said with some anger. "Butch,  
Cassidy, is there any short-cut we can take from here?"

Butch grunted as he swung his broadsword to knock away a graveller that had gotten too close. As he turned to answer roughly, a sweaty lock of aqua hair dropped on to his forehead which he swiped away with the back of his free hand. "We can go north-west from here," he rasped, "but that would mean we'd come out on the opposite side of the city Ashura and the rebels would come out of."

"I suggest we take it," Rainer said calmly as he let loose an ice beam from his palm and iced up at least half a dozen Forbidden into a frozen block of water. "Sooner or later if we keep going this way, we'll be overrun. Something seems to have agitated them."

"Fine," Suzie agreed, as she swung her torch to the left, highlighting a rising up crop of rocky land. "Jump the slope with your mounts and let's get gone from here."

Cassidy gratefully dug her knees into her horse's side to follow.  
However, all of a sudden, she felt a pain in her side and she screamed. The next thing she knew, she was unseated from her mount and was lying prone upon rocky ground. Desperately she threw her blonde hair away from her eyes where some strands had gotten tangled so that she could see but then let out a cry of denial as already, sharp-mouthed black shapes were attacking her rapidash, gnawing at its legs and eating it alive.

Butch shouted and turned back for her and just in time as a pack began to leap toward her. As he galloped past, he grabbed her outstretched hand tightly and then pulled her aboard to sit at the rear of his horse.

"I'm beginning to think that all this isn't worth it," he rasped worriedly while he spurred his rapidash harder to catch up to the rest of them.

Breathing heavily behind him, Cassidy just shook her head, her long braid of pale hair streaming in the wind of their speed. "To gain what one wants, one must be prepared for the risks," she said stubbornly.  
Inside her head, she imagined herself leading Ashura to battle, ordering him to do whatever she wished, destroying all those stupid Forbidden.  
Lord Garick kneeling to her, begging her for mercy. She patted the bulge within her over-cloak and smiled as she hugged Butch about the waist tighter. Sabrina had been sure it would work.

"Laselle, do you even know where we're going?" Junior asked to the crazy girl in the green forest-cloak in front of him, pulling him for all of her worth. They had been running for some time now and all the tunnels they had gone through had seemed to blend into some continuous maze - he had lost all semblance of direction.

"Butterfree, uh, Ditorion knows the way," came her hesitant reply.

"Free?"

She abruptly stopped their wild flight and Junior almost collided into her back. "You mean you don't know either?" she directed up to the pokemon.

"Free, free," the butterfree said crossly as it hovered above her head,  
lighting up the darkness of the tunnel so that they could see.

"Don't tell me what I think it meant," Junior said, appalled, as he let go of her hand.

She turned to him, a sheepish look in her brown-eyed gaze. "Junior-"

"Don't call me that," he said, feeling anger at the name. "I now know just what I'm 'junior' to and I want no part of it. You can call me JT from now on..."

"I thought you said not to call you JT?" she asked in an exasperated tone. "Anyway, as I was saying, we can just wait here for the others.  
They must be behind us."

They sat and waited for several minutes, leaning against the cold stone wall of the tunnel. There was no sound except for the steady beating of the butterfree's wings.

Junior was playing with his maroon hat. "I don't think anyone's following us."

"But they must be-"

"Laselle!" he exclaimed tiredly. "I saw so many different forks in the tunnel we've been running along. They could have easily have taken a different direction behind us."

Laselle began to look scared. "I-I didn't realise. It's just that those zubats ... I hate zubats."

Junior felt a lump in his throat. It only occurred to him now as well,  
that they were alone ... and virtually defenceless. He had his pokemon -  
no, who was he kidding? Machop or Graveller would have no chance against Forbidden - let alone a Pokemon Master - no chance at all. And for himself - sure he knew a few fighting techniques - all Fight Trainers continually had to practise them - but with the kind of power they were up against, he might as well have known none.

"Do you hear that? Junior - I mean, JT," Laselle suddenly whispered.

And then he heard it. Footsteps. Coming from the way they came.

"Do you think it could be them?" she continued excitedly as they both stood up.

"We don't know," Junior cut in. "It-It could be anyone."

Laselle's eyes widened when she realised that. "What should we do?"

Junior immediately looked around. "There, behind that small boulder. We can hide and see who it is first before we do anything."

They scuttled behind the aforementioned rock and the butterfree stopped using its Flash ability dropping everything to darkness. "Butterfree, I mean, Ditorion, could you please maybe transform into a ... err .  
something big, if it's an enemy?" Laselle asked hopefully.

"Free."

Junior sighed in relief. He had forgotten about Laselle's 'pokemon'. Sure it would be embarrassing for a girl to save him, but it was better than the alternative.

The footsteps grew louder and they held their breath. Butterfree prepared to transform.

A large cloaked figure finally stepped into view.

"Master Bruno!" Laselle shouted in relief, standing up to reveal herself from behind the boulder.

The muscular cloaked figure paused. "So we meet again, little girl." The voice was low and deep.

And nothing at all like Master Bruno.

Damn.

"Master Bruno?" Laselle tried again with a sinking voice.

Butterfree finally lit up the darkness with a flaring of light from its body.

The muscular brown-cloaked figure threw its hood back from its head revealing a hard, darkly-handsome face with glowing eyes like slits staring at them from under brown hair worn in thick long sharp spikes.

The Rock Master's face was as hard as his title. He corrected her.  
"Master Brock."

"Shit, shit and shit!" Erika was swearing as she stalked down the tunnel.  
The earthquake had stopped and they had managed to lose the damn zubats but now Ash, Misty and Duplica were gone as well as Bruno and the kids. And if that weren't bad enough she had dirt in her mouth.  
She tried to spit it out vehemently but the gritty dry taste of it remained on her tongue.

"And I thought good girls don't swear," Giselle said by her side. The doctor had been the only one to stick with her. Whether that was a good thing or a bad one, Erika wasn't exactly sure of. It seemed her normally annoying, arrogant personality had come back in full force.

"Ugh," she said with one more spit. She felt around on her head and then gasped in relief to find her hair-band still in place. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she said magnanimously.

Giselle waved a cloud of dust away from her face and coughed as she combed her long brown hair away from her smudged, pale cheeks. Her face looked worried. "Now what are we going to do?"

Erika shook her head as she kicked away a few pebbles with her boots.  
"Well, the smartest thing we could do, I think, is just keep going upward. If we turned back and tried to look for everyone, that could take months in all these caverns ... and frankly we don't have months with all these Forbidden hanging around. Everyone would have headed to the surface anyway so we'd have a better chance of meeting up with them."

Giselle made a face at her, then turned to face the tunnel, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Laselle! Ash! Bruno!" Her soft voice echoed along the hard walls.

Erika gasped then pinched her on the arm.

"Ow!" Giselle stopped shouting and levelled a cold brown glare at her.

Erika was unapologetic. "Lackwit! Do you realise that enemies could hear your voice as well? Especially Forbidden?"

"All right, I get the point!" Giselle hissed. "You didn't have to pinch me." She raised her slender arm and pulled back the sleeve of her coat.  
"Look at that! That's a bruise!"

Erika smiled inwardly. "Nothing more than you deserved. Now let's get out of here." She walked past the glaring woman and pressed on ahead.

"Did you see where Erika and Giselle went? I thought they were just in front of us," Ash was saying as they continued running along the tunnel,  
their boots making soft crunching noises upon the rocky floor. "Damn it,  
where is everyone?" Behind them was the soft roar of wind indicating that the zubats were still somewhere in the back although it sounded like they were getting further and further away. Maybe they had lost them by now...

"Ash, can you maybe, like, stop squeezing my hand so hard?" Misty asked as she let him pull her along with his free hand. With his other he was just barely keeping Duplica from sliding off his upper-shoulders.

He didn't bother looking back. "Tough. You'll just have to bear with my unpleasant self. I'm not losing anyone else."

But at that instant the ground rumbled louder like the sound of a bursting thunderclap and a veritable avalanche of heavy stones and boulders fell from above in a hail of stony barrage. Before he knew it,  
his boot caught upon an uneven section of the tunnel's floor and he tripped causing them all to fall in a tumble of cloaks and bodies.

Then a curious silence. The sudden rockslide or whatever it was had stopped. He could feel and hear rocks and dirt settle around on his back as he tried to regain his breath.

"Pikapi?" Pikachu queried out loud from within his backpack.

"I'm alright," Ash answered warily as he blew his hair out of his eyes with a tired gust of breath. "Misty?"

His vision gradually adjusted to the darkness but he could still hardly see with the amount of dust and dirt drifting around them. After a moment, he could discern her shape lying next to Duplica's unconscious body beside him.

"I'm okay," she stated in a hard tone as she pushed herself to her knees and adjusted her cloak and dress.

He suddenly heard Duplica cough and realised she was finally waking up.  
"Duplica?" he ventured with relief.

After a few minutes of silence, Duplica arose to a sitting position still wrapped in his black cloak. She rubbed her still-closed eyes, combing her long blue hair with the fingers of one hand. Some more dust rose in the air. "W-What happened?" she asked wearily, her voice rough from disuse.  
Her brown eyes blinked as they opened and adjusted to the darkness.

"Long story," Ash said, also pushing himself to a sitting position while Pikachu jumped into his lap. He rubbed his face with the back of his hand to wipe the dust off but only succeeded in smudging the dirt across his cheek.

Duplica smiled and looked as if she was going to say some smart-ass comment like she usually did - at least the old Duplica - until her expression abruptly changed. Features freezing, she looked away, hair dropping to cover her face. Sudden memories seemed to claw their way back to remembrance. "I-I'm so sorry..." she finally said. Her voice was a pained whisper. It sounded like she was going to cry.

He looked down and his hair fell back over his eyes. A tight feeling arose in his chest. It was just so wrong to see Duplica like this. It didn't fit, even more so then when she had been possessed. "You remember what happened?" he asked slowly. "Duplica, it wasn't your fault ... it was Agatha who used you..."

"Chu," Pikachu agreed fiercely, pointed black ears laid flat against the back of his head.

"Y-You don't understand. I-" Duplica suddenly gasped as she realised what it was that was covering her. His cloak. Almost as if it was burning her skin, she ripped the long, dark mantle off and threw it to the side.  
It left her briefly exposed before she hurriedly formed a thin, white chemise over her body with a short glow of change.

Surprisingly, Misty abruptly touched her shoulder, a look of tiredness on her face. "Duplica ... none of us blame you." Her eyes darted to him briefly then returned. "I don't blame you. Just stop punishing yourself"  
She smiled sadly.

Minutes passed. When Duplica looked up, a strange expression was on her face. She rubbed her moist eyes and then stood up, looking more herself than in a long time. Then she chuckled, though it was more a broken sound then one of true humour. "I'm sorry I was such a cry baby ... I-I guess I'm just not good at feeling sorry for myself." Her form flared violet as she formed her master's cloak over her body.

Ash rubbed his aching temples slowly and brushed his hair from his eyes again. She sounded better but he couldn't ignore the worry he still felt.  
He let out a light laugh. "Yeah, Duplica, you really scared me. Everyone has changed so much ... I don't think I could bear it if you did as well."

Brown eyes stared at him. It wasn't a cold gaze, but it felt totally different to how she had always looked at him. "Ash, people are always changing," she said, suddenly serious. "Me, most of all." She stood up and began to walk off down the tunnel.

Misty looked at him, shrugged, then stood up to follow after smoothing down her blue cloak.

"Pika?" Pikachu asked.

Ash hoisted him up on to his shoulder and picked up his own cloak.  
"Forget it, Pikachu. I never did understand women either. And with Duplica being one of my closest friends, I sort of forgot that she is one as well."

"Pikachu."

He started to follow the two women. "And yeah, she just reminded me of that fact."

Erika and Giselle walked on. Their path seemed to be converging into yet another passageway that seemed to steep itself higher. In front of them,  
the shaft was damp and cool, a contrast to the hotness of the lower caverns. Slithering snakes of shadows danced away from them as a burning torch Erika had created earlier and held aloft, shone its light through the darkness. She didn't want to be so near the fire, but with all things being necessary, she just had to brave the heat.

"I think we should be fairly close to the surface now," Erika said while carefully examining all that lay before them. Apart from the wavering light of her torch, nothing seemed to be moving among the small boulders and debris that littered the tunnel that seemed to go on forever.

"Great," Giselle replied with a scrunching of her pretty nose. "I'm afraid all this musty air and dirt isn't doing good for my skin."

"A bath would do wonders." Erika laughed a little. "I never thought I'd see the day when perfect Giselle would be looking so scruffy."

"Yeah?" Giselle tried to say condescendingly, although failing from her untidy appearance. "Well, I could say the same about you... I always found it funny that you'd think yourself so much better than me, when you yourself act a lot like me."

"I don't think myself better than anyone," Erika said a little annoyed now. "Nor do I act like anyone..."

"Really now," Giselle said, brown eyes shining challengingly. "From all the time we've worked together in the rebellion ... you've thought me some sort of slut or something. Always the cool feminine beauty who shouldn't lower herself by consorting with men like I do..." Then her slim eyebrows lifted as she thought of something. "Wait, in all the time I've known you, you've never had a relationship with a man. Are you frigid?"

Erika refused to look at her. "No."

Giselle's nose twitched. "Don't tell me you prefer the same side of the fence? Should I be scared of you, Erika Dear?"

"No! You don't understand," Erika said with a flashing of her green eyes. "Look, you think you had it hard when your gift emerged, but it was nothing, I mean nothing compared to mine."

"How so?"

But Erika ignored the question. She stopped walking and held Giselle from going further with her free arm. She could feel something familiar .  
but also not familiar. Strange and unsettling. She quickly snuffed out her torch against the rough tunnel wall and instantly everything dropped to darkness. "Quiet..." she whispered as she disposed of the smoking wood upon the ground.

The sound grew louder. A foreboding snapping noise like animalistic jaws opening and closing rapidly. Not just one, but many of them. And a familiar smell began to assault her senses. Erika crouched on one knee and quietly waited for her vision to adjust to the sudden lack of light.  
Finally her eyes grew used to the dark and shapes began to emerge at the far end of the passage. Momentarily she thought she was seeing a walking garden of some sort before she realised they were pokemon. Half-open mushroom things...

"I can't see a thing," Giselle murmured. She had crouched down somewhere behind her. "And, ugh, what is that disgusting smell? It's like week-old rotten ..." Her nose twitched. "Well, no offence, but like your Gloom actually."

Glooms.

Countless blood-red eyes flared like dying stars as the blanket of black walking flowers crawled toward them like a plague. As they grew closer,  
Erika could see the drooling mouths upon their stalks unnaturally filled with many sharp teeth. She swallowed, feeling the fine hairs on her neck stand on end. "That answer your question? There's like a wave of Forbidden just in front of us ... Glooms. But I don't think they've sensed us yet."

"Oh great, now what are we going to do," Giselle said, sounding uneasy.  
"We can't go back, unless we'd rather die by blood-sucking zubat instead."

Suddenly Erika felt a tug within her cloak and abruptly one of her green poke-balls shot out by itself and enlarged. The area around them lit up briefly with emerald light as her own gloom came out to stand by her side.

It had a worried expression on its bluish stalk. "Gloom, gloom..."

The green poke-ball shot back into Erika's hand and she miniaturised it and put it back within her cloak. "Gloom, you say you have an idea?"

"Gloom gloom gloom," it squeaked out desperately.

"I guess it's our only choice..."

"What was it saying?" Giselle asked, her eyes riveted to the approaching wave of Forbidden in front of them. Her vision must have finally adjusted.

"We're going to walk right through them," Erika explained softly. "Just hold your breath as long as you can and stick close to me ... now!"

"Gloom!" Her flower-mushroom pokemon exploded its scent into the air around it and began to scamper forward directly at the crowd upon its short legs. Erika shot to her feet and rushed after it. Behind her,  
she heard Giselle gasp in revolt but begin to follow her anyway.

Amazingly the tide of walking, ebony flowers began to split through the middle allowing them an opening. Gloom took advantage of it and leaped through boldly, widening the gap even more. Erika shook her head in relief as she followed closely. She couldn't really believe it was working - but the Forbidden Gloom must still share some qualities of normal gloom ...

Behind her, she could hear Giselle start to give gagging sounds.

"You should have taken a deeper breath," Erika said a little evilly.

"I think you might have to hold my hand," Giselle answered in a woebegone voice. "Otherwise I might spontaneously decide that dying would be a better fate than smelling this," she coughed, "lovely scent..."

Winding generally upward like a corkscrew, the narrow tunnel that Misty,  
Ash and Duplica had been following finally began to level out and widen so that it largely resembled the subways of old. Fewer cobwebs adorned the rocky corners and there was less debris scattered about the path. But the largest difference was that the deep darkness of the caverns had begun to lighten, so much so that they could actually see all the way across to where large stone pillars began to line the walls of the widening passage. Up ahead, orange light wavered casting their shadows in sharp relief. Fifteen-foot-high pillars carved into demonic designs towered up to the roof, dragons with hostile looks upon their stony features. The light that brightened the darkness as they pressed on seemed to be emitting from candles placed within each of the many statues' eyes. They walked until they reached the first pair of statues and continued on between them.

Sudden soft tapping noises from her boots startled her before she examined the ground more closely and realised that it was no longer the rough grey stone of the tunnels but beautiful white marble. Looking around, she saw that the walls and ceiling matched the pristine ivory surface. "It's the main hallway leading to the surface," Misty said softly. "It looks just the same as it did eight years ago." It was a beautiful and elegant hallway, walls arching gracefully to a curved roof.  
But it was a dangerous beauty as evidenced by the menacing designs of etchings in the walls and the fearsome dragon statues.

Ash looked slightly worried. It wasn't overly apparent but Misty could see it in the slight shifting of his light-brown eyes. "I hoped the others might have gotten here first, but I don't think any of them have gotten here yet." He paused and squinted, as if trying to see or sense something far ahead in between the numerous statuesque pillars. He raised his arms to the sides and slowed down his walk, holding her and Duplica back. "Careful now. It should be obvious that the main hallway would be guarded..." He suddenly noticed that he was touching her. With an unreadable expression, he dropped it and began to step forward, not looking back.

Misty rubbed her arm where he had come into contact and closed her eyes briefly. She now knew that giving into herself back at the ruins was a mistake. At least before then, she and Ash had been civil toward one another - now she wasn't sure how to act with him while he treated her like a stranger. But ... it had been so nice to pretend for a short while that it had been five years ago and everything was just so perfect.

Finally she steeled herself. No, pretending was nice but it was just a fantasy. Real life was different. Real life contained pain. She began to follow them. He, Pikachu and Duplica were already several feet in front and beginning to quicken their pace.

Wordlessly, with Ash in the lead, they weaved stealthily among the stone dragons along the east wall of the hallway, carefully taking cover within the long shadows they cast from the tall pillars. But strangely as they continued, Ash's steps began to falter as if he were getting more and more dizzy, until he stopped completely and dropped to his hands and knees. His eyes were closed, hand raised to his temples as if in agony.  
Misty and Duplica hurriedly followed to kneel by his side.

"What's wrong?" Misty whispered in alarm. She looked worriedly at Pikachu, small head poking out the top of his backpack, who also seemed to be suffering from the same effect.

"Ashy?" Duplica asked uncertainly.

A minute later Ash breathed in deeply and seemed to recall himself. He opened his eyes and Misty was frightened at the slightly red hue to his pupils before they faded to the more usual light-brown. "I-It's nothing"  
he said a little forced. He brushed his hair out of his eyes with a hand.

"Pikachu pika," Pikachu agreed a little warily, giving them a little paws-up from the top of his backpack.

"Nothing?" she asked incredulously. "Your eyes just ... changed!"

Ash shrugged without emotion. "I admit I felt something weird a bit then.  
But you don't have to worry - it was a different feeling than that other one. So I'm not suddenly going to go insane and blow us all up," he said sardonically.

She looked away, stung. "I-I meant nothing of the kind." And before she could stop it from leaving her lips she added, "I'm just worried about you."

Ash opened his mouth, then closed it, looking uncertain of what to make of it. Then she watched as his eyes suddenly darkened and she knew that he had taken it the wrong way. "Don't worry I won't be dying just yet -  
there's probably more of a chance that I'd be getting everyone else killed." He pushed himself up with a hand upon the white marble floor and jerked around to continue their covert weave through the dragon statues.

Misty closed her eyes, then opened them, just abruptly feeling so fed up.  
"Will you stop acting like you're punishing me?" she exploded, her eyes gleaming blue.

Ash stopped walking and seemed to turn calmly. But when he was facing her, she could see that he was anything but. His eyes had begun to softly glow, matching her. "Punishing you? I'm only treating you as I should and you should. It's the safest way. It's the best way."

"I didn't think I should act like a coward," she said acidly. "I know that you hate me, but please save it for after we finish all this."

He stared at her. "That's funny. I thought it was you who hated me. It makes me wonder why you even decided to seek my help in the beginning.  
Was it just to torture me? To rub my face in the fact that you can still play me like some sort of cheap game?"

"Are you referring to what happened back at the ruins?" Misty asked,  
her fury barely held in check. "If you are ... I admit that was a mistake. But I've made so many other mistakes in my life, what's one more to add to the heap? At least we know for sure that you really are free of my bonding - first my sister and now me."

"I never even touched Valdera in that way since I left her years ago," he said dangerously. Then he abruptly gave a hard smile and she just knew he was going to say something hurtful. "Not that I wouldn't want to, though.  
After all, why should I love you when loving her is the same thing except she doesn't trample my feelings and then toss me away when she's sick of me?"

She could feel the hurt settle within her chest, suffocating her, choking her. "You're just a dog without a bone," she said, again, before she could stop herself, just wanting to hurt back. "Just because I refused you back at the ruins. It was just a little pleasure, it didn't mean that I'd want to go back to anything serious."

The air wavered with unmistakable menace and a dark aura began to emit from his body. An unnatural breeze tugged at his hair, lifting it to reveal eyes glowing gold with fury. She was the same way, hurt and anger radiating from her as they stared into each others' flaring eyes.

"Stop it!" Duplica abruptly interjected in a shrill voice. "Will the both of you just please stop it!"

They both turned to see Duplica gazing at them, a mixture of anger and sorrow upon her suddenly pale face. Then she looked away, deflated. "I'm sorry," she said softly, "but looking at the two of you - you who had everything, destroying yourselves - it's just a waste, a horrible waste!"

Involuntarily, Misty took a step back, away from her. Sad thoughts rampaged through her mind. Duplica was right. A waste. She had called Ash a dog without a bone. But what about her? Wasn't she the same way?

A waste.

The words were like the breaking of a dam. Ash had been willing to talk back at the ruins but she had lashed out. Why? With but a word, all of the pain and loneliness and heartache, all of that could have finally been resolved. Perhaps she'd been wrong? But when he tried to talk to her to open up to her ... she had felt hate. Hatred! There was something wrong with her. And poor Duplica. None of this was Duplica's fault. In fact, it was probably all her own fault in the beginning! Maybe if she hadn't been so argumentative - maybe if she hadn't been so demanding -  
maybe if she had shown her love for him more-

Her cheeks tickled and she realised that tears were flowing from her eyes. Ash stood there in front of her, the look of anger replaced by one of dismay ... and-and caring. She could finally see it - despite all his remarks saying the opposite, she could see the look there that had been there since almost the beginning. And the hurt, she could recognise it for what it was.

She was sick of herself. Sick of denial, sick of hurting herself and him.  
Sick of laying blame, when it would not change her feelings no matter what. But now she didn't deserve resolution. "I-I'm sorry, Ash," she sobbed. "It's all my fault." She looked at Duplica as well. "I-I saw you. Both." Duplica's eyes widened. "That day five years ago. I-I .  
please take care of him."

And then she pushed between them, running. Just running down the hallway.

"Misty, wait, I don't understand!" he called out behind her. Then the sound of footsteps. He was chasing her.

She had to leave him behind. She just couldn't take it anymore. She sprinted harder, her long cloak streaming in her wake. Her tears were cold in the passing wind. The rows of demonic statues on either side of the hallway loomed as if leering at her as they began to blur.

Up ahead in apparent ambush, two men in long, dark yellow cloaks stepped out from behind cover of statues to block her path.

Pokemon League Thunder Masters. Their gloved fists crackled by their sides and their eyes flared amber as they accessed their innate ability over electricity. Both had blond hair that sparked with their power.

Strangely she wasn't scared. Darkness hazed into her vision despite the dancing candlelight of the statues' eyes. Inside she felt cold.

Just cold.

The Thunder Masters whipped their arms toward her, letting loose jagged bolts of lightning that hissed with deadly intent.

She didn't care.

So focused was he on chasing after Misty, his clouded vision locked on to the flapping sapphire folds of her long cloak in front of him, Ash didn't notice the League Pokemon Masters uncurl themselves from behind the statues until it was too late.

He spotted yellow cloaks...

No.

Lightning flashed brightening the whole of the hallway. He dived in desperation to knock her over. But he realised as he was airborne that he would never make it in time. The electricity would reach her before then.

No.

Her form seemed to darken.

Flash.

An explosive wave of black coldness blinded him, slowed down his flight,  
then propelled him backward instead to fly several feet before crashing into something narrow and hard - a statue. Blood flew out of his mouth at the impact and he dropped chest-first to the ground with as much pain in his head as there was in his body.

He blacked out.

Junior panted as he leaned against the curved stone wall of the tunnel.  
Bruises and cuts covered his whole body and his hat lay on the gravelly ground before him slightly smoking. His maroon clothes had become half-shredded from his chest and were stained with his blood. But no bones were broken. Yet.

Laselle lay on the ground behind him in a bundle of ripped green clothes.  
She was slowly crying from the powerful blow to her stomach when she had bravely tried to stand up for herself.

Brock was just playing with them. Otherwise he was sure they would have been dead already. They couldn't even run away when the Rock Master had exercised his element and closed off the tunnel behind them with rapidly growing boulders. Junior grimaced in disgust. Too bad Laselle's coward-ass butterfree had escaped through it before then. Seventh Master Pokemon ... maybe the damned thing had led them to this trap in the first place. Betrayal after betrayal.

The tall brown-cloaked man stood before them, slightly sideways, muscular arms still by his sides, mostly covered by the wavering folds of his mantle. His slitted eyes roved over them - though it was hard to tell what exactly his thoughts were. The ruggedly handsome face stopped as he considered Junior directly.

"So you are Bruno's son." The voice was deep but contained no obvious emotion.

Despite his terror, anger filtered into him at the reminder of his newly-found parentage. "Through no fault of mine." Desperately he leaped forward attempting another attack. He tried a fore-knuckle punch with his right hand which was brushed aside easily, then a thrusting sidekick. Brock caught his foot in his hands and then threw him into the wall. Junior cried out as he brokenly bounced off the stone surface and then collapsed in pain.

"I suppose I should tell you that once I was your father's closest friend."

Senses reeling, he had only one chance. He couldn't let Laselle be taken. Maybe his pokemon could succeed where he hadn't - a slim chance but better than none at all. He reached into his trouser belt and removed a small maroon poke-ball. "Machop, go! Karate Chop his head!" he shouted and at the same time he enlarged the ball and sent it hurtling at the Rock Master's face. Rock was weak to Fighting skill. The only chance.

Dark-red light flared. A pokemon's growl - followed by a scream and the cracking of impact upon rock.

Junior looked up to see Brock's arm extended, his fist pinning the light-blue Fighting Pokemon against a newly-formed crater on the tunnel wall. Brock returned his arm back to his side and Junior's Machop stuck to the wall a moment before it slid down to the ground leaving a red trail on the curved stone.

"But even he had love," Brock continued as if nothing had happened. He shifted his slitted gaze to Laselle and a feeling of hopelessness settled in Junior's belly. He growled. "They aren't worth it, son." Then surprisingly his brown gaze flared and the boulders blocking the tunnel behind them receded back into the earth. The tall brown-cloaked Master hooded his head, casting his face in its shadows and stepped over him and Laselle both. He walked on through the tunnel and left them alone.

Ash's eyes blinked open. For a while he could only lay disorientated on the ground, ears ringing as if a thousand bells had gone off in his skull. The cold marble floor beneath his cheek was numbing his face. With a hand he pushed himself up from his chest slightly. His vision was hazy.  
Black mists seemed to rise from the floor in sinuous clouds and was slowly clogging the hallway. The air smelled of dissipated electricity and acrid ozonic fog. It was as silent as a graveyard.

A dim thought came back to him. Misty. Spitting out blood, he frantically pushed himself to his knees but only slipped to fall on to his shoulder.  
He determinedly pushed himself up again and finally succeeded in rising to a sitting position though he had to lay back on the crumbling dragon statue behind him for support.

He pushed a damp lock of black hair from his left eye and gathered his cloak tighter around himself. The air was freezing cold. And the black mist had completely engulfed the whole of the hallway now and swirled about in the air like impenetrable smoke. The candles within the statues lining the walls had been blown out, destroying even those meagre light sources. If it weren't for his eyesight, he would have been completely blind in the shadows and mist. But even from what he could see, he saw that Misty was gone. Instead, pieces of blackened frozen corpses with shredded yellow cloaks littered the area that the Thunder Masters had stood.

But Misty was gone, the thought returned. He knew for all his bluster that he shouldn't care that much, but it was as if a part of his spirit had just disappeared. Who was he kidding? Over and over again he got into situations that tested his feelings and over and over again, the tests came back positive. He never really did get over her leaving him,  
he realised that now. She had been right - he had been punishing her. But he hadn't known that he was also punishing himself. He was a bastard, and he didn't deserve happiness. He thought about the life he had led. An evil bastard.

But as he promised he wouldn't allow her to die over this, never that. He would find her and stop this prophecy from destroying all that he cared about. Though after that, like he had said to her, they would never see each other again. He would never know peace but she deserved someone better than him. Someone who wouldn't cause so much hurt to both sides.  
He wouldn't even care if it was Brock, as long his old friend truly loved her.

His eyes grew dull at the thought. Yes, that was what he would do.

Duplica crawled beside him looking completely beat up, breaking his bleak train of thought. Her long blue hair was ragged around her shoulders, and her violet cloak seemed to have several folds ripped from it leaving holes and tears to show her white chemise underneath. Bruises seemed to be forming on her forehead and left cheek. "How long have we been out"  
Her voice sounded almost as weary as he felt.

"I don't know," he answered in a dull monotone. His sense of time was all screwed up along with his headache. It could've been anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. He scratched an itch on his cheek. There was that unknown feeling of elements floating in the air - obviously water from the mists. And yet ... there was shadow? Or was it Light? He didn't remember emitting any Forbidden elements himself. In fact he had actively been suppressing it for fear he'd lose control. Maybe he had accidentally let it out when he had been knocked unconscious.

Pikachu growled within his backpack and he tensed, or as much as he could feel tensed when all he felt was a sort of detached lethargy. Footsteps filtered into his hearing - many footsteps. "Someone's coming."

Ignoring the pain, he pulled himself up to his feet using the statue for support yet again. Duplica did the same with a slight groan and they stumbled into the deeper shadows of the wall behind the statue - and just in time as several figures came striding out of the fog to stand over the blackened remains of the Thunder Masters that had ambushed them.

Silence reigned as the group seemed to study the bodies.

One of them retched. "T-This is evil."

A pause and more footsteps. Ash could hear them walk past with slow movements. The statue they were using for cover had barely enough width to accommodate them both. He held his breath. By his side, Duplica did the same. Getting found out would be the worst thing that could happen right now - a thin line of blood was running down his temple and he just felt too weak for a confrontation. He shook his head at a sudden sarcastic thought. Or if he did have the will to fight, he'd be uncontrollable, completely destroying everything.

Shuffling sounds. "No more after those two. This must be the point of contact."

Ash blinked. These two? There were more? He continued listening.

"Point of contact?" a different voice continued. "You think this is the work of those damn rebels? The hit-strike on their South Lavender base was supposed to have wiped them all out. We had no orders to be specifically alert to attack either. This looks more like Forbidden work."

The other voice answered flatly. "Impossible. The wards of this hallway were supposed to prevent any from entering up above into the main city..." The sound of their footsteps receded further down the passage.

Wards. Thoughts raced through his mind. Then it was definite. He shut his eyes. If only he could kill himself now ... but no, he couldn't.

Misty.

She knew how much of a hypocrite he was and made him promise. Giving up was against his very beliefs, the very fabric of what made him what he was, but right now from what he knew, giving up would ensure no one else could die from his hand. Either way, he lost.

He had to go. He had heard enough. On silent feet, he pushed off from the statue and continued down the hallway, making sure he kept to the shadows of the wall. The black mists still swirling about and the extinguished candlelit eyes made sure he was completely invisible.

"Where are you going?" Duplica whispered behind him as she also followed.

Resolve settled within him. Up ahead, the hallway continued on until finally, through the hazy dark fog, he could see a wide marble staircase leading to the surface.

He pulled his deep hood over his head, letting the shadows fall across his face, his night-black cloak trailing behind him as he moved swiftly.  
He answered her without looking back.

"Indigo City."

Indigo City.

The largest capital city left standing on the whole of Indigo Insula and most likely, the world. The Orange Archipelago, the other continents,  
none had been spared from the darkness. The Dark Pokemon Wars had seen to that. A revolution it was called. A revolution against the very things that society had been built upon. Justice, democracy, people living in harmony to coexist with the world and the elemental creatures they dubbed, 'Pokemon' and indeed, that they heavily depended on just to make the world work. All of it just gone, beginning from the day the fateful rediscovery had been made.

All because of one power-hungry man named Giovanni who dared to upset the balance that had existed since the dawn of time. The Traitor, he was widely known as. But also the Returner.

Silent black lightning streaked across the domed sky high above the tall concrete jungle that was Indigo Plateau City. The thin jagged trails of forked electricity the colour of twilight spread haphazardly across the clouded horizon to the accompaniment of a steady whistling wind which blew among the tops of the gloomy skyscrapers and office buildings. Their glass windows reflected the flaring dark lights so that the city seemed as if it had a life of its own, glowing brightly with its own elemental energy. Most of the streets on the outer edge of the city were empty of people, but of the many in the inner city who braved the coming just to see the world being cleansed and remained outdoors to celebrate, all felt the foreboding atmosphere of the supercharged feeling within the air.  
Visibility was even lower than usual from the hazy clouds of fog that had descended over all.

Much was going to happen tonight.

Indeed, much was happening right now, General Yas thought as he stood at the foot of the stairway that led to the elegant white-marbled dome structure known as the Victory Gate. With a feeling of impending disaster, he observed the panic-stricken soldiers and trainers rushing about the wide entrance, swords drawn and poke-balls clutched in ready hands.

Dressed in a long, League silver coat, he hopped up the massive stairs leading to the Victory Gate building two steps at a time, his steel hauberk underneath his coat clinking against his chest. He grabbed one of the many passing soldiers also uniformed in grey by the arm with a gauntleted fist. "You! What goes here?" He jerked his chin up at the bustling entrance to the marble building, still gleaming beautiful despite the sheer blackness of the night. He had been ousted from his bed from the alarm of his intercom, indicating an emergency. It wasn't his shift, but in an emergency there was no shifts. Too bad as he had hoped to get some sleep before the reformation. As long as he woke up the next day with the sun shining and the birds crying above a blue sky, he didn't much care about how it had happened.

The soldier grimaced and was about to roughly pull himself away when he recognised just who it was that had detained him. Dark-brown eyes widened. "General Yas! Forgive me. But there has been a breaching of the Victory Road tunnels. Apparently some Forbidden have broken through."

He automatically reached down to finger the hilt of the long katana sheathed at his waist on his belted coat. Dread crawled down his throat to settle into his belly. "Forbidden? But ... that's impossible!"

"That's what General Kas suspects," the frightened soldier replied as he rubbed his freed arm. "The body count is over a dozen including-" His voice cracked here, indicating that he couldn't really believe it himself. "Including two Thunder Masters. The bodies have been .  
blackened and show sign of Forbidden elements."

His grey eyes narrowed at the mention of his rival's name, but then he squashed down the feeling. At times of crisis, petty squabbling over minor rivalries had best be forgotten. "Forbidden elements you say? Light or Shadow? Maybe our resident queen bitch, Mistress Valdera was just flexing her muscles."

"All indications point to Shadow, Sir."

Dark Forbidden then. The fine hairs of his neck stood on end. He dismissed the soldier with an abrupt nod and in a burst of speed,  
continued his way up toward the entrance, boots clicking on the ivory steps.

Forbidden. In Indigo City. A feeling of betrayal arose within his chest.  
Didn't Lord Garick promise that their city would be impervious to the reformation? He fought to conquer the rising panic. No, best not jump to any conclusions. He would investigate this...

Suddenly another soldier running down the steps collided into his shoulder and he grunted at the impact, the force enough to twist him around and almost cause him to trip over the next step. Fury darkened his eyes to weapon-steel silver as he rubbed his shoulder and turned around to address the clumsy fool. "Idiot! Watch where you are going!"

The soldier had stopped to regard him with cool light-brown eyes. Longish soft black hair wavered in the chilly night breeze, intermittently being blown over and about a smooth handsome face. The standard grey of a soldier's long-coat covered his lean athletic form from shoulder to foot,  
the lower hem flapping at the ankles of his black boots. The Fire symbol next to the League emblem on his uniform's breast marked him out as a Fire Trainer and not just a common soldier. What was not standard was the small brown backpack slung on his back. A frightening burst of familiarity exploded into the General's mind, but when he tried to think just who this was, he just couldn't grasp the man's identity. Like a slippery fish with bare hands, it just eluded him.

Hard lips on that handsome face gave semblance of a mocking smile. "Long time no see." A finger touched the tip of his nose in an impertinent salute, and with a flap of his long coat, continued down the long flight of marble stairs toward the lamp-posted city street. A Flareon scampered down after him on its four paws, its orange and red fur burning brightly like a walking fire.

General Yas spent several more seconds trying to remember just who the man was before giving up with an annoyed growl. He continued to rush up the stairs. He had more important things to worry about right now than some smart-ass subordinate.

On a street a block away from Victory Gate, out of sight from curious bystanders and other soldiers and trainers, Ash ripped the grey League long coat from his shoulders and with a crackle of dark lightning,  
disintegrated the fabric into floating powder. The cold wind picked up the dust and blew it away high toward the tops of the tall buildings lining the street, high into the night sky.

The Flareon trotting by his feet flashed and reformed into a five-foot-eight woman with long blue hair, a violet cloak draped over her slim body.

Duplica didn't look at him. "We have to find her." There was no doubt of who she meant.

For a moment he didn't answer. Their boots clopped along the cracked sidewalk. To their right, abandoned storefronts stood silent. To the left, the wide street was empty save for a few pieces of rubbish being blown and rolled along by the wind. Lamp posts that lined the street struggled to illuminate the sheer darkness through the hazy fog that seemed to hover about them. Indeed it was amazing that there was still electricity to light the city. An ironic thought almost made him smile.  
Perhaps the League's Thunder Masters were working overtime.

He took off his backpack and reformed his long black master's cloak about his shoulders with a dark shimmer. "I will find her." He closed his eyes and hugged it. "But after that ... I don't know."

Pikachu's dark head popped out the top of his pack, pointed ears twitching. "Pikapi. Pikachu." His pokemon patted his arm.

Duplica took a sidelong glance at him. Her eyes suddenly flared. "Well of course you're going to get back together."

He was taken aback by the abrupt intensity of her stare. All at once,  
her eyes reminded him of someone. He lifted his arms to the sides to let his cloak shift over his form like a robe so he could put his backpack back on. Then he let out a hard laugh directed at himself. "Duplica, I ... I appreciate your concern ... but some things, we just have to work it out by ourselves."

She tore her gaze away and forcefully kept her eyes to the front as they walked. "Bullshit, Ash. That's just bullshit. I know exactly what you're thinking. I am not going to keep silent and let you make some fool mistake, like spontaneously decide that you care too much for her to care for yourself. It's just the kind of selfless, but stupid thing that you would do."

Surprise almost made him bite his tongue. Duplica never spoke serious like this. Just what had Agatha done to her to change her? It didn't sound like her at all ... she didn't even call him Ashy or some other irritating pet name either.

"Don't look so shocked," she continued in a hard tone completely alien to her usual bubbly one. She was still refusing to look at him. "I can be serious when I have to. And I care too much about y- ... my friends to let them punish themselves."

Ash kicked at a wadded piece of tissue on the sidewalk with his boot. He felt as torn as that piece of paper. "Duplica ... it just isn't as simple as that. Getting back together. You know the saying, 'it was better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all'?" He clenched his teeth. "What a pack of lies. I'll give you a better one. Take a bird that's been caged their whole life. Hatched in captivity. But caged in a basement, darkness is all that it ever knew. Then one day, you let it free into the bright day above. For the first time in its life it knows light, to fly in the open sky, to know freedom. Instead, a moment later you net it and bring it back into the shadows of the basement inside its cage. At least before the light, it never knew the life of freedom. Now it knows that it will never attain it - that is true cruelty." He shook his head. "Life doesn't always have a happy ending. In fact, in some cases, it would be better if there wasn't a happy ending."

Duplica was openly staring at him again. "Are you saying that it would be better if we lost?"

He paused. "Maybe."

"You're not making any sense-"

Footsteps behind. He stopped and neatly sidestepped into a nearby alley,  
dragging her after him by the wrist and cutting short her retort. They wordlessly hugged the mossy wall with their backs as a company of League soldiers followed by two men in long dark-red cloaks ran past, their demeanor silent and serious.

When the sound of their footsteps receded, Duplica looked at Ash's hand on her arm. She frowned as if she had found a bug on her arm, and to his shock, roughly pulled herself away from him. "You didn't have to hide us,  
I could have dealt with them."

"Then we'd have to deal with a thousand," Ash replied, slightly puzzled.  
"You do know who that black-haired man was in the long silver coat and armour back at the Gate building?"

"If I remember right, that must have been General Yas. Didn't he lead half the Pokemon League's cavalry in the wars?"

"The very same. His duties now are protection of Indigo City along with his ... let's just say ... his partner. And he takes it very seriously. I don't know about you, but I want to get through this thing without having to fight several armies worth of people within a populated city."

Duplica snorted. "He can't be very smart if he didn't recognise you. You practically almost knocked him off the stairs."

"I wasn't surprised. He tries not to think about me too much." He walked past her and kneeled down to examine a dark stain on the pathway outside the alley. He touched it with his fingers. It seemed to be a piece of burned fabric, with the bottom left corner that was less singed a shade of ocean blue. Standing up quickly, he threw a fold of his cloak back and began looking all around. "Anyway, we better hurry. I was right, she did pass this way."

Duplica stared at the cloth in his fingers. "Ash." She hesitated. "Do you have any idea what happened back there?"

He closed his eyes for a moment. "I ... just don't know what to think any more. Or even if I want to think." He shook his head as he studied the surroundings again. There was a balcony further up the alley wall, the first of many that seemed to climb the whole building. It would be easier to find her if they searched from up above, and there would be less people to see them. Maybe she even had the same idea.

"Hold on tight in there, Pikachu," he said back to the closed flap of his backpack. Then taking a running leap, he rebounded off the opposite wall with his boots and surged upward to grab the floor of the lowest balcony and hoisted himself up. He prepared to thrust himself up to the next one,  
and looked down at Duplica to signal her to follow him. The alleyway was empty.

"Up here," a voice called from above.

He lifted his eyes to see Duplica already climbing the building, jumping from balcony to balcony. He shook his head yet again.

The central city streets were packed with hundreds and thousands of excited people all shouting their celebration of the coming reformation.  
Many of them held signs, which read, 'Save the world' and 'Lift the darkness' not to mention the many varied banners depicting the 'L' logo of the Pokemon League.

On Third Street, the excited shouting was suddenly cut short when a manhole cover in the midst of the crowd abruptly exploded upward as if an underground geyser had erupted. However, instead of boiling steam that drove the explosion, it was a geyser of sub-zero ice shards and water.

The shouting turned into screaming as the people closest to the eruption fell back in a ring of shock and pain as their extremities were frozen solid.

The manhole cover high in the sky shattered into ice causing a brief flash of light which was so bright, it illuminated a surrounding area of more than two blocks. Following the blast, a blue-cloaked Pokemon Master jumped out of the hole, followed shortly by a dangerous-looking coated woman with braided hair and two Pokemon League Generals in grey uniform.

Suzie looked about observing the packed street and the surrounding city buildings. Up above, the dark dome covered the sky completely. They were finally inside. She smoothed down her black coat and looked at the specs of frost that had collected on her sleeves. She frowned and they evaporated into the air with a slight hiss.

"Move along, move along!" a loud voice bellowed, drowning out the frightened whimpers of the people around them.

She raised her eyes to find a company of League soldiers dressed in grey armour and coats shoving roughly through the crowds toward them. The soldier in the lead spotted her. "Woman! It is illegal to obstruct-"

Butch and Cassidy stepped in front of her. "Step the hell down, soldier"  
Butch growled, his maroon eyes narrowed as his gauntleted hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. "Do you have any idea who you are addressing?"

"G-General Butch!" the soldier faltered. He blanched even more when he saw the expression on Cassidy's face. "And General Cassidy! But we all heard you had died in the final battle against the Rebels."

"Not even close," Cassidy sniffed contemptuously with a flick of her blonde ponytail. "You think a tiny force that was all the Rebellion had left could defeat us?"

The soldier averted his gaze within his helmet. "Not the rebels ... but ... we've heard some things that ... Master Ashura has returned."

Rainer shoved his way roughly past Butch and Cassidy, tearing off his hood to reveal his face. "Enough of this! While you stand here gossiping,  
do you realise that a party of rebel Pokemon Masters lead by that very same Master you mention has made it into this city?"

"What?" someone roared.

Suzie turned to see a tall heavyset man with huge shoulders and dirty-blonde hair push himself forcefully through the soldiers. He was wearing a long silver League coat that gave him an air of authority. His dark eyes were glittering with anger. In her mind's eye she saw the bright yellow aura flare out from him.

"General Kas," Cassidy greeted him with a smirk. "You look well."

He ignored her and turned to Butch. "What's this about rebels entering the city?"

"Rebel Pokemon Masters that survived the purging," Butch replied in his croaking voice. "Apparently they seem to think they can stop Lord Garick from invoking the Armageddon."

Genral Kas' mouth creased in a grim line. "That can't be allowed to happen." His mouth flattened even more at a thought. "The break-in at the League Gate," he growled.

Suzie stepped forward, interrupting him. "Enough of this wasting time"  
she said quietly. "General Kas, do you have any idea of the whereabouts of Master Brock?"

He looked down at her with contempt. "Stupid woman, do you realise that you are talking to someone of authority-"

She narrowed her eyes. At the look, his eyes blinked, and he unconsciously stepped away. He glanced at Rainer, who nodded at him. He turned back to her and shook his head. "More and more we didn't know about," he said gruffly. "But I do not know the answer to your question.  
Master Brock has been missing for some time now."

Suzie clenched her teeth. She should have had him by now! This was unbearable... if it weren't for that Ash ... Her eyes suddenly gleamed. Where Ash was ... Brock was sure to follow. She looked around at the others. Butch and Cassidy were again talking to their colleague and Rainer was looking through the crowds as if searching for someone.

She didn't need them anymore. Now that she was inside and she was so close, she could feel it, they would just be unwanted baggage. She would find Brock herself ... and finally end this.

End the nightmare.

"Raise the alarm," General Kas ordered to one of his soldiers. "And tell that good for nothing, General Yas, what's happened."

"That will be nine gold Y's," the waitress shouted at them, her voice just barely being heard over the crowd's loud ruckus though she stood not more than one foot from their table.

"Nine golds?" James asked, his voice high as the waitress placed the tray of drinks in front of him. "That's highway robbery!"

Jessie was trying to observe what Butch and Cassidy were doing from her seat next to him, though it was hard with the sheer amount of people jostling around the street and mostly blocking their vantage point from the outdoor cafeteria. "Just pay it, James," she burst out in annoyance.  
"When we bring those two in, it should be enough to keep us in high style for a long time." Butch and Cassidy seemed to be conversing with the newly arrived League General, who was heavily built and with closely cropped dark-blonde hair. Right now they looked to be too solidly guarded there on the street with many soldiers watching ... and that blue-cloaked Master was there also, observing the crowds. Just then he seemed to look right at her, his cold watery gaze pinning into her despite the dozens of people they used for cover. She immediately ducked behind a fat man guzzling his dinner at one of the tables that was between their line of sight.

"What's wrong, Jessie?" James asked as he sipped at his glass. He moved his head to the side to see what she was hiding from.

"Don't make it so obvious, you fool!" she hissed at him as she hugged her chin to the surface of the table.

"You mean that Water Master? He's not looking this way anymore." Then he tugged at his nondescript civilian tunic. "And it's not like he can recognise us with these new disguises we're using."

Jessie raised her head from the table. "I know that, but we can't be too careful with ... you know, Pokemon Masters." She ran a hand through her dark red hair, not worn in her usual ponytail, but free to slide around her shoulders. She felt distinctly uncomfortable in her own disguise. A civilian grey frock which was altogether too tight. She should have known that the woman she had robbed it from was a bit too short.

James sipped again at his drink. "If you're so worried, why did you insist on leaving the twerp and his friends? We could have used his help."

"Oh come on, James. I refuse to rely on the twerp," she said with superiority.

"But it looks like we'll have to. Have you heard what some of these people are saying?" he said with the sound of his usual panic. "They're saying that outside of this city, they're planning to wipe the whole earth clear. That means no more Fuchsia State ... and no Fuchsia State means no employer, and no employer means no reward for bringing in those two criminals, and all this time we've spent will be for nothing!"

"Why don't you say it louder, I don't think the whole cafeteria heard you whining," Jessie said sarcastically. She sensed movement from the street behind her and she turned, angling her head around the still-guzzling fat man. Butch and Cassidy were starting to walk away down the street through the crowd in the company of the general and his soldiers, their aqua and blonde hair soon becoming but a few bobs in the sea of people. She pushed her chair back to the annoyed grunt of the person behind her and stood up. "Well, come on James, we better follow."

James did too but then suddenly felt his pocket. "I think Persian wants to come out now. He's not used to being inside a poke-ball anymore, and he keeps shaking my pants."

She shook her head with a malicious grin. "Well too bad for him. If we're caught by any of these soldiers with a pokemon, we'll be arrested faster than a complaint can leave your lips. Besides, I've gotten rather sick of his arrogant attitude and at least in there, we won't be able to hear him order us around." An ironic laugh escaped her mouth then at some other thought. "Imagine. Civilians no longer allowed to keep pokemon. How barbaric."

Holding her breath tightly with her lungs screaming for relief, Giselle gave one more mighty heave to the manhole cover above her head, finally dislodging it. The rusted steel cover overturned and clattered with a cringingly loud metallic sound on the apparent street above like an oversized coin. She scrabbled frantically up the rest of the slimy ladder and out into the night.

She gasped like a deep-sea diver coming out of the ocean. Glorious, fresh air! Well, not so much as fresh but anything was better than the stench down there. It was cool against her flushed face, but the best part of it was that it didn't stink. She collapsed upon her back upon the street sighing wearily. "We made it!"

"Don't be so melodramatic," a dry voice replied from behind her.

Giselle opened her eyes and blinked, trying to let her vision adjust to the different light. The sewer had been as black as one of her favourite dresses. The thought made her frown. All of those dresses had been destroyed back at the South Lavender base. She pushed herself half upright and turned around to regard the fuzzy green shape emerging from the open manhole she had just come from with an imperious look. "Well,  
excuse me if I'm not a connoisseur of awful smells, Mistress Erika. I almost didn't make it. First your Gloom and then this sewer. I think my nose might be permanently damaged."

The fuzzy green shape finished pulling herself out of the hole with significantly more grace than Giselle herself had and settled down upon her knees. Gradually, the shape focused into a green-cloaked woman with shoulder length blue-black hair held in place by a red hair band. With an annoyed expression on her lips. "I wouldn't complain if I were you, my Gloom or that sewer - especially that sewer," Erika said hotly. "We're lucky we even managed to break into the system or we'd have been lost down in the Victory Road Tunnels forever."

Giselle sniffed, still unconvinced. "Lucky is not the word." She pushed herself up all the way to her feet and inspected herself. Her once-white medical coat was now almost as green as Erika's clothing. Except it wasn't nature's green, but some sort of slime green. And she didn't even want to guess what that brown gunky stuff was that had collected beneath her long fingernails - now most of them broken. Thoroughly annoyed now,  
she added, "Besides, you don't have anything to worry about. Your sense of smell was already impaired."

Erika gave her a look as dirty as Giselle was feeling but then shrugged apparently deciding to let it pass. The Grass Master almost brushed stray strands of her hair with her hands but then spotted the same brown stuff covering her fingers that Giselle had and stopped just in time. "Anyway we better get to cover, we're too exposed out here in the open," she said instead as she herself stood up.

Flicking her fingers in a futile attempt to dislodge the gunk from her nails, Giselle took a better look around at where they had surfaced. Or as better as she was going to get with the gloominess of the air that looked so thick, if she opened her mouth she could probably taste it. Everything had a decidedly grey or black cast or some mixture thereof. But she could see well enough, the dim lamp posts on the sides of the street were actually working, giving some scant light to cast about the darkness.

It seemed as though they had come out in the outskirts of the city within the suburban sector - houses with tiled rooves lined each side of the street they stood upon, grass lawns, trees, an intersection with traffic lights at one end, a park on the other. Although unlike the lamp posts,  
the traffic lights didn't seem to be working, their signals blacked out like the sky. Of course, with no vehicles functional, it wasn't like they'd be needed anyway. Looking to the south-east, the horizon was blacked out by the dome. They were finally inside.

She finished her inspection with a shrug. Erika had no cause for worry. The neighbourhood looked deserted. All the houses' windows were devoid of light and the overwhelming silence suggested that no one in the whole street was home. "No one's here to see us anyhow," she concluded as she pulled her high heels from her coat pocket. She grunted as she hopped on one foot to put one on then the other. "Which is good, since I'm an absolute mess."

"Don't worry about what you look like now, worry about what you'll look like if any League Patrol catches us," Erika said in a dry tone, though her grass-green eyes were looking about alertly for any sign of movement along the street. Giselle quieted down just to make her happy.

Surprisingly they were rewarded by the faint clopping sound of what seemed to be horses' hooves down the road from the west toward where the broken traffic lights were.

"Riders." Erika's green eyes narrowed. She turned quickly with a flap of her cloak and sprinted across the road towards a house that provided plenty of shadows to hide within. "Come on, Giselle, and hide!"

"You're not the boss of me," she said just to be disagreeable, but she followed anyway. They leaped over a half-collapsed wooden white fence and crouched behind an overgrown rosebush on the front yard of the deserted house. She was careful not to touch any of the sharp thorns as she hid,  
which was actually some feat since the night was so dark despite the light posts.

The rhythmic trotting of the horses grew louder and then they spotted the flickering burning manes of saddled ponytas and rapidashs being ridden by grey-coated soldiers. They slowly moved across the road in their field of view and were scanning the houses to the sides as if looking for something.

Giselle squinted. The front two riders looked highly familiar. They both seemed to be female. One had shortish blue hair, while the other had red hair pulled in a ponytail... she suddenly growled. "Why those traitors!"

"Quiet," Erika immediately cut in. "Looks can be deceiving. Remember there are more than one Jenny and Joy in the world."

Giselle shook her head. Of course. Their Jenny and Joy were back at the Waterflower with Misty's sisters. These two ... must have stayed with the League.

"What I find more important," Erika whispered, "is the flashing thing that Jenny is studying in her left hand. Do you see it?"

She looked hard at what the blue-haired woman in the lead was holding. A light flashed on it and suddenly she recognised the small electronic device. She let out a surprised breath. "That's a Silph Co EDS."

A pause. Then Erika asked in a dry tone, "That's fine, but what exactly is an EDS? Unlike some people, not all of us are doctor-engineer ... well whatever it is you are exactly."

Giselle shook her head with some condescension. "Don't you know anything besides playing with perfume and flowers? An EDS is an Elemental Detection System. They're not as sophisticated as what ... say a Forbidden might be able to detect, but they can sense some elemental use and home in on its source - pokemon or human. What a gifted human gives off is identical to the more standard pokemon energies after all." She pulled her own detector device out of her coat pocket. "I have one myself, this one, and you've seen me use it. But I think that one over there that ... Jenny ... is holding is more advanced."

Erika frowned down at her device. Then she looked up and glared at her.  
"That's all fine and good, but remember that its my knowledge about flora that actually gets you the medicines you use to heal-"

A shrill beeping sound emitted from the detector across the street that the League Jenny was holding. It actually glowed green and immediately,  
two dozen unfriendly armed soldiers were looking over in their direction.

In panic, Giselle quickly went to clamp a hand over Erika's mouth, though failed when the Grass Master spotted her filthy hands and recoiled with a sick expression on her face.

"I'm sorry, so please calm down!" Giselle whispered forcefully.

The detector's shrill alarm died. One of the soldiers looked at the Jenny. "Want me to check out that yard?" they could hear him ask gruffly.

The blue-haired captain was still studying the detector though it had already died down. Her voice drifted down to them in the passing wind.  
"Don't bother. It was probably just a stray bulbasaur or something.  
Besides, we're not after grass related elementals, but it seems Forbidden type. Generals Yas and Kas have reported a break-in at the Victory Gate in the northern end of the city."

Immediately, a visible sense of panic seemed to wash over the whole of the soldiers. "You didn't tell us that Forbidden were involved!"

"And they weren't even supposed to be able to make it into the city!"

The League Jenny's brandy-coloured eyes darkened. "Well, now you know!  
Are you soldiers of the Pokemon League or a bunch of snivelling cowards?  
We will defend this city if need be, defend your poor families, even if we face countless demons from Hell! It's just this one more night until Lord Garick finally completes the reformation prophecy and then you can go back to hiding underneath your beds!"

At their captain's castigation, the grey-coated soldiers looked ashamed.  
Then they straightened and saluted. "As you wish, Captain."

"And that is how it should be."

The troop continued on their trip east down the suburban road.

When they were gone, Giselle stood up and brushed some stray pieces of grass and leaves from her hair. She sighed. "That was close."

Erika didn't seem quite so relieved as she looked suspiciously around at all the various shadows being cast around them. "Forbidden in the city?  
And I thought we wouldn't have to put up with that with that black dome covering the city and all." She shook her head. "And did you listen to her? It's something we shouldn't forget. The people here are just trying to protect their families. It's natural. Of course, letting everyone else who isn't part of this city go to Hell isn't exactly nice, but we should try to understand human nature."

Giselle's eyes narrowed as surprisingly a wave of intense anger washed over her. "I don't care. All human life is precious and they should understand that. They're all happy in their own little enclosed world happily ignoring all of the other people who just aren't privileged enough not to be part of the League. That prophecy is madness and if they go along with it, as far as I'm concerned, they're holding the executioner's sword just as much as Lord Garick and the other League Pokemon Masters are." When she turned back, it was to find Erika staring speculatively at her with green eyes. "What?"

"To think that I thought I knew you just a couple of days ago..."

She coughed and waved her suddenly hot face. She fought to act normal. "Anyway, things as they are," she said in her arrogant voice, "I don't think we should worry too much about whether we get discovered"  
She smoothed down the rest of her clothing as best she could. "They should be more worried about finding us instead. From what I've seen you're no slouch at Grass Mastery and I know enough to put over-eager men in their place."

Erika shook her head in amusement as if to say she didn't buy it. She in turn inspected her green cloak which had also been grimed up by their stint in the sewer. "What you forget, Doctor, is that now we're within Indigo City itself, the very heart of the Pokemon League. We'll be seeing a lot more actual Pokemon Masters like me ... and you ... against us." With that said, she frowned down at her soiled clothing. The green cloak shimmered briefly before returning itself to a clean state.

Not convinced, Giselle just shrugged one shoulder at the same time wishing she knew that particular trick. It would be one thing she wouldn't mind learning with her unwanted power. Then again, that was one thing compared to the many she didn't want to know.

Finished with her cloak, Erika turned to study her. Her nose twitched.  
"Why don't you clean yourself up too? It isn't hard and it'll do until we can bathe properly."

Not meeting her eyes, she grew quiet. "You know how I feel about people and elemental gifts. I already broke my vow twice about using it."

Erika was solemn. "It's your decision... and I guess it's safer anyhow since those patrols have those AIDS."

"That's EDS," she corrected, her mind elsewhere.

"I guess you would know."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Now come on, since Indigo Center isn't going to grow legs and walk to us, logic states that we have to do the walking ourselves." She turned upon the heel of her boot and jogged toward the side of the street while trying to keep within the shadows of the bushes.

Giselle muttered to herself before following closely.

Silence settled back into the night.

And unknown to them, a black figure observed from high above, balanced perfectly upon the tall thin apex of a dimly glowing street light.

From rooftop to rooftop a slender figure glided across multi-storied buildings, long blue hooded cloak billowing out at each extended jump.

Leap. Rapid footsteps upon concrete roof. Leap.

At this altitude, the high cold winds that whispered through the upper currents and among the tops of city structures blew much more forcefully than at ground level. But the sound it made as it blew past her ears was almost the sound of weeping.

She jumped toward the next building, this one at least a dozen levels high. In midair she enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness as she seemed to drift along the current of the upper winds. It made her feel as if she wasn't really there. Below, the darkness of city streets was almost shrouded in shadow except for the faintly glowing street lights. She wondered what would happen if she fell. No one would miss her. Her most of all.

Then all too soon she landed upon the next rooftop with a thump of her boots. She grasped a loose fold of her cloak with her right hand and continued onward without hesitation.

The old league housing were situated at the western end of the city.  
Although housing was really an inappropriate term - slums was a more apt description. There wasn't even any real houses there, just tightly packed-in multi-levelled flats. It had been the 'poor' section of the city. At least in the old days.

She reached the end of the rooftop and jumped down to the next building,  
cloak streaming above her. After dropping rapidly through the air, she landed with a louder thump, cracking the cement underneath her boots, and steadied herself with a hand as she crouched.

Unbidden, thoughts of Ash returned again to knife her in the chest,  
almost on schedule. She honestly thought he would be happy without her there to make him miserable. And herself.

She forced the thoughts away with a slight sob as she pushed herself to her feet and continued on her way, jumping across rooftops. She was messed up. But then she had known that for a long time, just hadn't openly admitted it to herself. Now it only fell to her to discover just how much she was messed up. The meeting with Valdera...

Glowing blackness in the sky flitted to the left of her peripheral vision. She took a brief glimpse toward the centre of the city where she could hear the faint rumble of people cheering. In the distance, through the tall peaks of other buildings, the Palace of the Elite Four was again visible. It was a pentagon-shaped structure built upon layer upon layer of elegant balconies. From its roof, a slim tower thrust itself toward the sky, its apex seeming to almost touch the very top of the protective dome covering the entire city. Black lightning that flashed overhead seemed to reflect from its marble stone walls giving it an eerie shining effect. The last tower to be used in finally opening the way.

Once it had looked much different. Once it had been known as Indigo Stadium where the Pokemon League Championships were held each year. The place where Pokemon Masters were born - real ones who earned their Mastery due to hard work, effort, strategy and team work. Not the bastard offspring of ancient blood that had so frighteningly quickly replaced the old ways solely from brute force, overwhelming power.

Gary. Now that she had ... freed Ash from worries about her, he could now concentrate on the task at hand. And stop this utter madness. She kept her gaze to the front, not having to look at the sky to see its utter darkness.

Destroying the world around himself in the name of the Pokemon League.  
What level of arrogance and selfishness did a person have to have to commit such atrocity? Birth of a new world, but at what cost? Then again,  
she couldn't quite keep the mocking voice in her head from snickering to her. Just let the world die, the traitorous voice said. It's not worth saving anyway.

"Crying, sister? The tears do not become you."

Misty almost stumbled upon landing on the next rooftop. Quickly looking around, she finally spotted the slender white-robed figure standing atop the roof of an adjacent building. Long wind-blown blonde hair sinuously drifted to the side in the upper winds that howled about them.

Angrily, she reached within her hood to find a slight moistness on her cheeks and rubbed it away. She surveyed the area. The buildings were not so tall any more in comparison with the inner city structures. Dark old apartment flats abounded across the empty streets below. She hadn't realised that she had already arrived at her destination.

She let her gaze drift back slowly. Valdera stood upon the edge of a slightly taller building looking down upon her. The thin white robes that covered her were flimsy at best and not one goose bump was raised on her smooth skin despite the chill air. The two of them never really had been affected by cold weather.

Misty threw her hood back, letting the wind catch it and her hair,  
blowing it to the side to match her sister. "I can cry if I want to," she said softly.

Valdera crouched a bit, then leaped across to join her on the rooftop.  
She seemed almost to glide, her slight robe catching the air just so, as she crossed the space of emptiness between them. Then there wasn't even a sound as bare feet alighted on the concrete. Her sister turned to look at her, the both of them standing only a few feet apart now, aqua eyes identical to her own glowing softly. "But then, this isn't your party is it, Mistaria?" she said, shapely lips twisting into a mocking smile.

"Save me the corny lines, Vally," Misty replied, letting her own eyes flare. "I got your note. Now are you going to tell me what's going on, or will we just stand here and throw insults back and forth?"

"Vally," she mused as she shook her head slightly, the long blonde hair catching the wind even more to float hauntingly. "I haven't been called that since the night I left Cerulean City."

At the memory, Misty almost choked. "Left? I thought you died! Everyone did. You were swept into the river..."

"Just because I hated to swim, doesn't mean I was incompetent at it either. Besides, weren't you happy?"

"Happy? How could you think that I would be happy?" A feeling of outrage grew. "How dare you think that? You of all people should have known that I loved you. Of all the times I stuck up for you in front of Mom and Dad.  
All the times we teamed up against Daisy, Lily and Violet. Damn it, we were twins!" She looked over her sister's features. The night Valdera had disappeared they had been seven. But for the differing colours of their hair, they had all but been identical. Now, sixteen years later, though they had both grown into adults, it was still the same. Valdera's face was still as her own, eyes, nose, cheekbones, pink-tinged mouth - right down to the dimple in her right cheek when she smiled. She looked over her sister's body, loosely covered by the flimsy white robe. Even their figures were identical. She even wore her hair at the exact same way, the exact same length, loose to flow about her shoulders and down her back.  
Though of course, Valdera's hair was still the same golden blonde the way it was back then, and hers red - the tones just slightly darker now.  
Probably to match the tones of their souls.

Some people may have found it eerie to just know that another person shared her exact features. But to a twin, it was just the way the world was. They had grown up that way.

"Twins? We are so much more than that, Mistaria. Much more." Valdera's mouth twitched. "For instance, I know that you never really believed I was dead. When you first saw me again, you actually weren't that surprised. You were more surprised by me being in the League, and my element, if anything."

Misty blinked. She had never given up the hope that her sister was alive,  
and though she never told anyone, she had occasionally searched for some sign of her in the hope that she would find her. However now that she thought about it, somewhere inside she knew that if her sister were dead,  
she would have felt it ... somehow. "W-Wait," she stammered, "what do you mean more than twins?"

Valdera smiled a smile of malice. "How do you think I removed your blood-bond from Ashura?"

Something snapped inside and her eyes flared anew. "So it really was you back at South Lavender." Her voice was soft with deadly anger.

"He was just as good as I remembered." Valdera hugged herself around her slender waist and tossed her blonde hair back with a flick of her neck.  
"And it seemed he remembered me with how much he enjoyed having me back."

The air dropped a few degrees as Misty stared at her. Fog slowly began to blow out of their mouths at each breath. Then she let out a slight laugh.  
"You're lying. He was unconscious during that time."

"Ah, but it's the subconscious that tells no lies." At some inner thought, Valdera's body abruptly sparked with white lightning,  
illuminating the entire rooftop as if she were a spotlight that had exploded. Bright whiteness began to emit around her in an aura of deadly electricity as the sound of hissing thunder permeated through the air.  
White boots formed over her bare feet, as well as her long Master's cloak to cover her robes. "Which comes to the main reason I called you here"  
she continued in a furious tone. Surprisingly, her blue eyes were moist with unshed tears, revealed now in the intensity of her aura. "Though you say you love me, I am different. I hate our father, I hate our mother, I hate our sisters ... but most of all, I HATE YOU."

In culmination with her shout, she flicked a palm outward, exploding flares of vivid light into the darkness and Misty narrowly saved herself from being blinded as she threw a fold of her blue cloak over her face and spun. After completing the spin, an angry sob from in front warned her of Valdera's intent and she leaped backward, high in the air,  
throwing the cloak from her eyes.

She guessed right, as Valdera had materialised below in the exact space she had just vacated delivering a crunching high axe kick which missed her but connected with the concrete of the roof instead. The blow was so powerful that the mortar seemed to dissolve beneath her boot sending a blast of rocky grey shrapnel and pressurised air everywhere.

The force of the explosion propelled her further back in the air than Misty had intended and abruptly she found herself without roof to land on. Thinking fast, she completed a back-flip to stabilise her momentum and threw a bolt of water towards an apartment block to the right. The instant the column of liquid hit, she froze it solid in the form of a slide, flipped around an over it with her hand and slid along it with her boots towards the building she had snagged.

She was serious, Misty thought, shocked, as she turned her head and searched for her sister. The rooftop where she had seen her last was nothing but a dust cloud. If that kick had connected, she would have been breathing out from her insides. Never before had Valdera ever attacked her with serious intent to kill.

Her senses suddenly screamed. Without knowing exactly why, she dived headfirst from her makeshift slide, just as Valdera teleported in the air directly above her and shattered her ice construction with a double fisted blow that had been aimed at her head.

The air was cold, rushing past her face and flapping her cloak, as she continued her downward dive aimed at one of the many upper windows of the nearest building. At the last instant, she thrust her palms forward,  
shattering the glass and broke her fall with some forward rolls followed by a slide upon the hard wooden surface of the apartment. She couldn't see as broken wooden furniture smashed in front of her while she slid through trying to slow herself down. Finally, she planted both hands upon the ground and thrust herself feet-first at the nearest wall, bounced,  
flipped, and landed into a crouch bringing herself to a stop.

Valdera swung in through the window after her, twisted once, then landed softly. She stood deathly still, her white cloaked form luminous in the darkness of the abandoned upper apartment room. Her hair wavered in tune with the cold wind that was now blowing in through the shattered pane at her back. "Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"THIS!"

She leaped even before Valdera had driven her right palm forward sending a surge of blinding white electricity at her feet. Crackling lightning cooked the soles of her boots as she grasped on to an overhead light and swung away. Strangely, she would have expected to be hurt by the proximity of the blast, but she didn't feel a thing besides the expected heat.

Whiteness flashed in front of her as she was swinging away and she was ready for that too as her sister shifted in to intercept her with a midair spinning heel kick. Without thinking she blocked it with her left forearm, somersaulted and kicked herself away with both feet, using Valdera's leg as a springboard. Her sister gasped in surprise as she was knocked off-balance and fell backward. They both moved into opposite back-flips as they dropped away from each other and simultaneously landed, each in a crouch.

The air was cold and quiet save for the howling wind outside and the sound of their heavy breathing as they stared at each other with glowing blue eyes.

"I can understand father and mother ... and maybe our older sisters. But Why do you hate me so much?" Misty asked softly.

"You haven't figured it out yet?"

"No!" she suddenly screamed. "Do you have any idea how I felt when the very first time I saw you again, knew for sure you were alive, you were cheerfully helping Gary finish off what was left of Cerulean City while you searched out rebels like me to kill?"

Valdera narrowed her eyes. "That was revenge. I went through hell just because I was different, just because I wasn't like everyone else with their stupid love of anything to do with water. And you ... you were the worst of the lot. You're just a traitor."

"What are you talking about? I always stood up for you! When the other kids talked behind your back, I was the one who knocked some sense into them. How do you think I first got an image of being a bit of a tomboy?"

"Maybe, but you still sold out." Her eyes suddenly flashed with hidden knowledge. "You rely on your Water Mastery when you can be capable of much more. Our Water Mastery genes are the weak link of our parentage.  
The fault of our father. And it would have been the fault of our mother"  
She grimaced. "Our supposed mother that is. Thank hell that she wasn't or we'd have turned out exactly like our air-headed older sisters ... or we wouldn't exist at all which would be an even better option."

Shock made her mouth open. "What are you saying, supposed mother? She was our mother!"

Valdera shook her head. "You lived with them longer than I had and you still didn't figure it out? Our father, stubborn boar that he is, isn't so righteous after all. He had an affair. We are the result."

Her eyes shut. Something inside of her wanted to deny it, that Valdera was spewing nothing but lies ... but for the first time in her life,  
crazily it fit. It seemed to explain all the little nagging thoughts that she had had all through her childhood ... it just fit too perfectly not to be true. But ... but then ... who was their real mother?

"And THAT is the question that counts, dear sister," Valdera said aloud,  
"along with just who was our dear Ashura's father."

Her eyes snapped open and she thrust herself to her feet with a violent flap of her blue cloak. "What do you know about Ash's father?"

Valdera also stood up out of her crouch. "My, my, that got your attention."

"How do you know so damn much?"

She replied with a non-humourous smile.

"Does the rest of the League know?"

"Lord Garick does ... why do you think he let you come inside so easily?  
He needs Ashura ..." An unholy blue light gleamed from her pupils as she said the next. "Which is why I have to kill him."

Time seemed to slow. Then speed up again, incredibly fast.

"The HELL you will." Her form flared a violent dark-blue as she exploded forward so hard, the wooden floor beneath her boots shattered.

The faint sound of revelry drifted up to them as they jumped across from building to building in the darkness of the artificial night. Ash sneezed as the cold breeze blew past his shoulder, blowing out his hood and cloak out behind him. Gary had done his job good, he thought, looking up at the protective dome that covered the city. If he concentrated he could make out the complex weaves of pure shadow that had gone into the making of it. That worried him. It seemed his old rival had somehow gained the knowledge and power of the forbidden element that he had thought was his alone ... He closed his eyes briefly in pain. Along with the Forbidden Pokemon that had been summoned into the realm. The power of the prophecy? He knew that Gary had been attuned to electric types just as he had been, but now this too? It didn't bode well.

Duplica bounded to the next building rooftop in front, her violet cloak and blue hair floating in the wind behind her. Ash followed closely, his own leap taking him across just at her back.

Duplica directed a dark look towards the center of the city where much of the noise was being generated. "Idiots. They shout the name of that madman as if he were the answer to all their problems. But all he is, is a murderer."

Ash was surprised to find himself wanting to defend him. "Gary just wants the best for his city." He clenched his fist. "But I guess that doesn't excuse the fact that he's willing to sacrifice everyone else just so his city can have a rebuilt world to themselves."

"And that's another thing that doesn't make sense. The whole Forbidden prophecy involved the Armageddon of the world ... there was nothing that indicated that it would be a rebirth."

Ash shook his head, even knowing that Duplica couldn't see it, being in front of him as she was. There was something missing here, he knew it. Then he breathed out, expelling the worrying thought from his mind. The important thing now was finding Misty. He knew they were getting close.  
The overpowering feel of her was so strong in the air. Normally he could sort of sense her, since he knew her so well, but for some reason, the signs were powerful enough that it seemed there were two of her.

"Why would Misty head toward the city slums?" he wondered aloud if only to make conversation with Duplica in front of him. Misty wasn't the only person he was worried about. It was Duplica too.

But she just grunted something incoherent and ignored him.

He fell silent, feeling uncomfortable. Duplica still wasn't herself. Ever since she had awoken, it seemed like ... she disliked him. Well,  
maybe not as soon as she awoke, there was a brief moment when she seemed herself ... then she had hardened and treated him as if he were a particularly unwanted visitor come to call. He stared hard at the back of her head as she lead the way. She rarely met his gaze anymore and preferred to either travel in front of him or behind him.

"Duplica, do you hate me?" he suddenly asked.

Her jog across the roof suddenly stopped and he almost bumped into her back.

He scratched at the back of his head. "I mean ... if there's something I've done ... or if ... I know I should have protected you from that hag,  
Agatha-"

"Ash, what do you remember about your childhood?" Duplica abruptly asked,  
but without turning around.

"Well, you know about that," he said, puzzled. "I left at ten on the usual badge journey."

She turned to face him slightly, though her brown eyes were still not meeting with his. "Not that, I mean earlier. When you were just a kid."

His gaze clouded. "Well ... you know me and my mom lived on the small farmhouse in Pallet... it was hard making ends meet, but I helped her with the vegetables we grew and sold-"

"What about your father?"

Abrupt hot fury rose up within him unexpectedly. "I have no father," he growled. Then he blinked, a bit confused at his reaction. "Actually, I must have had a father, or I wouldn't be here would I?" He laughed, but it sounded forced even to him. "But I honestly don't remember. He must've died when I was a baby. Mom never did speak of him."

Duplica looked into his eyes then and this time it wasn't a cold look.  
Warm and brown hers was. He blinked. Now he remembered what her gaze resembled. No wonder he had always liked her. She reminded him of-

"I don't hate you, Ashy," she said, breaking his thoughts. "Though I wish I could. It would have been easier." Then she turned once more to the front, and jumped, violet cloak wavering in the air, down to the rooftop of the abandoned restaurant building below before he could say anything.

Still confused, Ash didn't follow her just yet, as he watched her duck out of sight behind the walls of a stairwell which led downstairs into the building. Why was Duplica suddenly interested in his family and past?  
It made no sense. She had always avoided speaking of things like that before and he had assumed that she was uncomfortable with it because she herself had been an orphan. He remembered warmly accepting her into his own house back before all the wars began, and she had seemed just to fit in like she belonged there.

"Well, better not stand around remembering stuff like a senile old man"  
he said aloud.

"Pika," Pikachu agreed from his backpack, a bit annoyed.

"Well buddy, you don't have to listen in on my thoughts if you're so bored by them." He jumped across the distance between rooftops, over darkened streets and alleyways below, feeling the cold hard wind as it blew his black hair up and out of his eyes ...

And water splashed beneath his boots as he landed. Instantly he felt something was wrong as he looked down and noticed the whole rooftop was wet with overflowing water, gushing out from a busted pipe near the stairwell in the center. There was so much water it was leaking over the edges of the building.

"I can't say as you're welcome back, Ash," a voice from behind the stairwell said coldly. The owner of it stepped out into view holding a curved katana blade to Duplica's neck who he held in front of him as a hostage.

"General Yas," Ash finally said, after a pause. "I guess you finally remembered me."

"You flatter yourself." The General's eyes were gleaming blade-like silver. "You're not worthy of my attention. It was General Kas who raised the alarm and told me that it was probably you who broke in at the League Gate. The Masters left there were just blackened corpses. I just put two and two together after that. I should have known it was your handiwork,  
Assassin." He said the name with deep contempt as if he meant a slug rather than a killer.

Ash ignored the insult to nonchalantly adjust his black fingerless gloves. "You can call them out now."

"As you wish." Yas whistled, and up the fire-escape on the other side of the roof trooped dozens of League Trainers armed with poke-balls and swords. On either side of them, a Fire Master dressed in a red cloak and a Ground Master in brown leaped up from their hiding places on the edges of the building.

Ash didn't recognise either of them, the Masters appearing to be young and just barely over the age that they would have come into their abilities. Not from his time then. The two stared arrogantly at him as if he were a mouse to be devoured by the cats which they no doubt assumed was themselves. Definitely too young then. "One more," he called out expectantly.

The sound of a pebble falling from behind him made him turn his head and he wasn't surprised to spot a black-robed woman adorned with silver charms come floating above the edge of the roof and settle down. What he was surprised about though was the actual identity of the chaneller who had blocked his senses. Then they had fallen right into the trap.  
"Cassandra?" he said, his voice tight with betrayal.

The blue-haired woman looked away from his eyes. "I'm deeply sorry Ash.  
But ... you know my grandmother. She wouldn't survive without this city.  
I owe the League my loyalty."

He turned back furiously to General Yas who was still holding Duplica hostage behind his sword. He laughed bitterly. "You're out of your mind if you think this so-called reformation is going to solve all your problems. If you go along with what that ... fool, Gary has proposed,  
you're all a party to mass-murder ... world-wide murder."

Yas chuckled with a bitterness to equal his. "You dare accuse us of that?  
You who have killed so many people, I doubt you could remember even how many? You didn't come by your nickname giving out cotton candy to children." He swivelled his grey eyes down to Duplica's cheek who had stayed silent throughout the whole ordeal. "And who is this? She looks familiar though I can't say that we've met. Yet another of your followers? Will you sacrifice her as easily as you did my daughter?"

Ash sucked in his breath. "I know I'm guilty of killing, and after this,  
I'll probably burn in hell for it and I welcome it, but I did not sacrifice Yasmine as you still wrongly believe! She died a hero in the Dark Wars, giving selflessly of herself of her own freewill, I had nothing to do with it. She saved countless lives. Why can't you still allow her the honour?"

"Honour?" Yas roared. "You cannot enjoy honour when you are dead!" Then he coughed, recomposing himself. "Now open up your backpack and send your pikachu over here, or I'll slit this girl's throat," he said in a quiet dangerous voice.

Ash desperately thought for a way out of the trap, but he couldn't think of anything. Yas had thought of all the outcomes like the experienced General he was. If he sent a killing surge of electricity, the water they were all standing on would harm Duplica as well. Yas knew that he would never willingly endanger his friends ... though of course his daughter being the one exception. If he tried a physical attack, he held Duplica hostage. If he tried anything else, Cassandra and the other Pokemon Masters and the trainers would be on to him in an instant. And once he had surrendered Pikachu, he would only be half as strong and easy pickings for the number of people against them.

But what Yas hadn't considered was Duplica herself. Especially when she spotted the black chaneller robes that Cassandra was wearing. Her brown eyes exploded into a frightening gold colour.

She screamed, "I ... will ... not ... be ... controlled ... AGAIN."

"What ...?" Yas gasped in shock as Duplica's body melted to water and passed through him to his back, reformed, then clamped her own hand on to the hilt of his katana, over his own gauntleted fist, threatening his own neck instead. She had completely reversed their positions, she now holding him hostage instead of the other way around.

The two Pokemon Masters stepped forward their hands beginning to glow.

Duplica roughly turned Yas' body toward them. "Move and I swear I'll cut your General's head right off his shoulders!"

The Masters stopped moving.

"Girl ..." Yas said, his voice incredibly angry, "I'll not be used like this!"

His body flashed green and a sparkle of dust exploded into her face.  
Duplica stumbled drowsily and Yas managed to elbow his way free, forcing his katana with him in the process and slashing at her. But shockingly,  
Duplica narrowed her eyes and instead of dodging it, she smacked the blade away with an arm that had suddenly turned itself to hardened steel and spin-kicked the General away with a flap of her cloak.

Ash was completely surprised, having had no idea that Duplica could pull such a move, but was soon preoccupied by more threatening matters as the Ground and Fire Master turned towards him, already blasting the power of their elements from widened hands. And as if that wasn't enough, the sound of escaping energy cracked the air as dozens and dozens of League Pokemon were thrown out by the trainers to the accompaniment of red light flashes.

He knocked away the fiery ember with his right hand sending it into the sky, and shot a thin bolt of lightning into the water by his feet,  
enough to electrically splash a wave as high as his chest to block and neutralise the summoned spikes of earth that had been thrown at him.

"Charmeleon, Fire Blast!"

"Sandslash, Rock Throw!"

"Beedrill, Poison Sting!"

He leaped high into the air, and the cement that had been underneath his feet just disintegrated as dozens of Pokemon attacks thrust into the same area sending stone shrapnel, bricks and water droplets flying everywhere.

Down below, Cassandra stared at Duplica and began mumbling underneath her breath, her hands forming arcane gestures in the air in front of her.

Duplica cried an animalistic scream of rage and transformed in a blast of fiery destruction creating a wide crater in the roof. General Yas shouted in pain as we was blown backward off his feet by the blast, her fire singing him badly. A furious Moltres took to the fog-dark skies with a flap of its massive wings, the fire-blazing legendary bird lighting up the darkness like the sun. She shrieked and a huge circular pillar of melting-hot flame burst out from her opened beak directly down at the chanting woman. Cassandra cried in fear as she realised that she would not complete her spell in time.

"Duplica, no!" Ash expelled as he descended from his jump, turning his attention from the Masters and trainers to the woman who had been one of his many old friends. Elemental blasts shot up at him in response.  
"Pikachu, shield us now!"

"Pikaaa!" Pikachu yelled as he jumped from his backpack and generated a blue-black crackling forcefield, shielding them both in midair. Pokemon attacks pattered against it to the sound of a hailstorm.

In turn, Ash thrust his hands down at Cassandra and concentrated quickly.  
An electric shield of his own crackled into place in the form of a dome over the frightened woman. Duplica's Flamethrower bounced off and shot to the side like a reflected beam of light and arced into the side of a building in the distance. A split-second later the whole building burst into flame with a sound like thunder and began melting to its side like a burning candle.

Ash landed from his jump with a splash on the still-wet roof, while Pikachu landed upon his shoulder.

"Keep shooting!" General Yas ordered angrily, still sprawled on the wet cement roof where Duplica had knocked him down in her transformation. To the direction of their trainers, the dozens of League Pokemon burst out again in their hail of elemental missiles. For their part, the other two Masters, having realised that it was going to be harder than they thought, called out their own pokemon from poke-balls within their cloaks, a rhyhorn and a charizard respectively which both roared in unison as they exploded free. The rhyhorn pawed the wet rooftop, horned head lowered and beginning to growl as it felt pain from the water on its hooves while the charizard breathed out fire from its snout and spread out its dragon-like wings to take off.

Alarms and frightened shouting wailed in the distance. Already he could feel numerous points of power turning in their direction. He desperately erected a new wall of electricity in front of him using his link with Pikachu for extra strength. It deflected most of the blasts from the League Pokemon but he had no confidence that it would last a second longer once the two Masters and General Yas began to co-ordinate their attacks.

It was time to leave.

Duplica-Moltres was hovering high above them, still screeching her displeasure at his rescue of Cassandra.

She was safe.

Perfect.

He jumped high into the air again and pointed to the wet rooftop.  
"Pikachu, Thunderwave!"

"PIKA!"

Paralysing lightning exploded everywhere.

Wooden floor cracked, old plaster crumbled around them, and furniture was smashed as Misty continued forward furiously attacking, while Valdera retreated, smiling as she dodged or blocked every single one of her hits.

Punch, spin-punch, kick, kick, roundhouse, punch, kick. She kept on striking, her gaze clouded and her lips shut in a grim line. Valdera's arms and legs were a blur as she parried the punches with her arms and countered the kicks with her own. It had been going on like this for what must have been more than half an hour.

It didn't make any sense. None of it. Why would Valdera want to kill Ash,  
when from all she had known till now, she seemed to care about him? And why couldn't she even land a single hit? When she avoided all of Valdera's moves earlier, she had thought she was a good match for her,  
but now it seemed quite the opposite.

"Why does Gary need Ash?" she breathed in-between punches and kicks.

Valdera ignored the question as she defended, instead asking, "You fight good." Her amused expression faded as she seemed to examine her moves more critically. "Your fighting style is very familiar." Misty kicked upward then let her leg fall down in a high axe kick which she also blocked. "You went back and completed your training didn't you?"

"Of course I did! You and Ash weren't the only ones who fought in the Dark Wars!" She tried several snap kicks but again failed to break Valdera's defence.

"I thought you probably just went away to have a good cry. He betrayed you didn't he? That's why you left. You couldn't stand to be cast aside,  
so you left before he could do that."

Misty slowed down her attack in shock. "How do you know that?" Then sobbing in anger, she jumped and rebounded off two walls for momentum to come down on her in a powerful aerial kick.

Valdera's eyes flared a bright unholy blue. "Mistaria, didn't I already tell you that we're closer than twins!" she screamed as she grasped Misty's outstretched foot and then swung her around using her momentum against her to fling her powerfully at the wall. "It's gotten so bad now,  
that your emotions are leaking in to me!"

Emotions leaking in? Valdera was reading her mind? Unable to stop her flight, Misty twisted in midair to level her feet at the wall as she smashed through in an explosion of wood, plaster and bricks. Then suddenly she was outside in midair, in the black sky, having been thrown out of the building. Freezing cold air blew her cloak around forcefully.  
Hurriedly she grasped the star-shaped badge clasped on to the heart of her cloak, flipped once, then threw it into the air before her. "Starmos, I choose you!"

Her star pokemon's ruby face flashed red as it enlarged to its real size and caught her just in time. Misty crouched upon its back as it swooped down then up, just narrowly missing a low-lying rooftop.

Valdera stared out at her from the gaping hole in the building, her white cloak glowing bright from anger. "Bitch!" She performed a complex hand motion and light flared from her fingertips, forming into her female white pikachu with green eyes which sat upon her wrists. "My Pet, destroy her! Radiant Bolt!" She threw it up into the air.

The pikachu's green eyes stared at her as it rose into the air like a bullet. "Pikaa..." it growled furiously in a contrastingly soft voice as its body grew luminous and began to crackle from the white energy it was gathering.

In midair Misty quickly kicked at Starmos' rear blade causing it to spin up in front of her. For the moment, momentum allowed her to continue to rise as she grasped at the stars back in form of a shield and merged her mind with it, merged her abilities with it. Starmos rose up to the challenge, and to her surprise, she could feel the sheer violent emotion of her pokemon. She didn't know that it hated Valdera so much. A silvery sheen erupted from the star's face. "Reflect!" Misty shouted and Valdera's pikachu, now looking like a white comet rebounded off the shield harmlessly.

Valdera gasped, seeing her pokemon's attack directed at her instead. She jumped from the building just in time as the white comet that was her pikachu collided into it, causing a massive explosion of light and burning shrapnel that brightened up the whole area like fireworks.

As her sister fell through the air towards the nearest rooftop, Misty flipped once to reseat Starmos beneath her feet. "I don't care anymore"  
she sobbed. "All I know is, that before you kill Ash, I'll kill you .  
and even myself first!" She concentrated and continued her movement into a thrown ball of Hydro Pump which left her right palm like a cannon ball.

"Such selflessness!" Valdera mocked as she landed from her fall on the building and lifted her hand. She narrowed her eyes and they glowed a bright blue as her white pikachu suddenly reappeared within her lifted palm. The ball of destructive water screamed through the air. In one smooth movement she jumped, formed her pokemon into the long curved white katana, and slashed downward, cutting the projectile into two. The two halves fell far away behind her and shot into the rooftops of two buildings causing explosive geysers of debris and water.

"And still using water-ice attacks?" she called up to her as she landed lightly and transformed her sword back into her pikachu which sat upon her shoulder. "How can you hope to beat me when I practically remade myself into a weapon against our family's element?" She closed her arms up in front of her chest and interlocked her fingers. "Die!" Her white-cloaked form sparked once, then a massively thick beam of white lightning erupted from her palms and surged up at Misty in a zigzag line of destruction.

Misty couldn't move away fast enough. The lightning struck her with the full force of elemental nature. She screamed. Pain like only lightning could give erupted through her being. And yet, for some reason, the lightning also felt good ... like it belonged with her. She lost control over Starmos and crash-landed upon a nearby building, trying to break her fall by rolling along the cement roof. Starmos bounced down next to her and lay still.

Strangely, Valdera then shouted as if she were also in agonising pain.  
Her pikachu fell off her shoulder to land paralysed on the ground.  
Lightning sparked around her form haphazardly and without control. She crumpled down to her knees and leaned forward, holding her belly.

For a moment, the both of them could just lie there, smoking with dissipated electricity, each on their adjacent rooftops panting heavily as they fought to regain their breath.

Valdera recovered first, smiling woodenly as she pushed herself to a sitting position. "I haven't felt like that since the first time I managed to channel electricity," she coughed. Then she closed her blue eyes briefly. "I should have known that it wouldn't be so simple."

Misty sat up too. "Why ... Why is this happening?" She focused on her sister's gaze despite the distance between them. Her voice quieted to a whisper. "Valdera, just how are we linked?"

Even though it was a whisper, Valdera seemed to hear her easily. "Let's find out," she growled as she exploded to her feet and took a running jump to her rooftop.

Misty narrowed her eyes, anger rising up within her from an unknown place. It surprised her. "You still want to fight? Well, it would be kind of me to oblige you!" She also leaped to her feet and jumped high to meet her sister in the air. She rotated into a flying roundhouse kick which actually struck Valdera directly in the stomach.

Instantly a sharp pain exploded inside her own mid-section and she doubled over in agony and complete surprise. Losing balance, she began to spin out of control as she fell. The city beneath her was a revolving scene of shadows and lights. And then she landed shoulder-first upon the cold cement roof of another building with a massive crack, bounced once and then rolled into a painful pile of arms and legs.

Valdera landed in a crouch next to her, frowning slightly as she rubbed her stomach. "You kick hard, sister," she said with some difficulty,  
then stood up and smoothed her flapping cloak. "But then, I've learned to withstand most pain. I mean, with the inferior water side of my genes, it causes me pain whenever I wield my lightning side." She looked down at her lying there and sniffed. "It looks like you on the other hand, have not."

Misty swivelled and reverse spin-kicked Valdera's chin as she used her hands to propel herself into the air. It sent her sister flying backward off her feet to land on her back violently. At the same time, her own chin exploded in pain and she was knocked down all over again.

Spitting out blood, Valdera cursed as she flipped back upright and jumped forward kicking Misty's waist, sending her tumbling across the roof. In return, she was also kicked in the waist by an unseen force and was thrust backward to fall on to her chest.

Misty blinked as she pushed herself to her feet yet again while Valdera did the same. Her sister lifted her hands in a fighting stance. This was ridiculous. It was getting them nowhere. And she was tired, just so tired. She dropped her arms to her sides. "Vally ... I-I don't want to fight you anymore. If you'll just tell me why you say you have to kill Ash? I thought you liked him, enough to even be with him during the Dark Wars, and I know how much you disliked boys... If you want, you can kill me, if that's what will truly make you happy, but please, leave Ash alone. If not for me, then at least for the world as he is trying so hard to save it despite what he may have done in the past."

Valdera's eyes which had dulled during their most recent fight, now sprang back to life with blazing blue. "You're such a hypocrite,  
Mistaria! If you care so much about him, then why haven't you been showing it? Why have you split up yet again?"

Misty opened her mouth for an angry reply, but the words died in her throat. She couldn't answer.

Valdera spread her arms apart as she looked at her. "I'll tell you why, dearest twin sister! You're afraid of being hurt! Inside, you make up all these silly excuses why it's better for you to be apart. Oh, I'll just make him miserable! I'm such a horrible person, he deserves better"  
She closed her eyes and her voice saddened. "But after all this time,  
time I could only dream of having, you still don't know what it is to love and be loved. You can't have love without being vulnerable. Love is not just pure joy, it is also pain. Which makes love when you have it as sweet as it is. Knowing that the person who loves you is also making himself vulnerable for you." She opened her eyes again, and they were wet with a sheen of tears. "You had all this but you threw it away! You have so much, and yet you reject it." Her voice dropped its sadness then and regained its overwhelming fury. "And that is the main reason why I hate you so much." She tapped her shoulder and a light flashed as she ported her pikachu to sit upon it. Abruptly, she flung her arms to the sky, and the stiff upper-city winds grew ten-fold as her white aura blazed anew,  
brighter than even the burning buildings they had left in their wake. "As much as I hate myself!" Shockingly, her bright blue eyes flashed and turned a deep crimson red.

Misty was forced back several feet by the sudden devastating wind which howled and screeched like a thousand souls in torment. Her boots could hold no purchase upon the cement rooftop and she slowly slid back as she lifted a fold of her wildly flapping blue cloak to protect her eyes from the light and the wind. Her hair felt as if it would be pulled out of her skull. "Valdera, what are you doing?" she shouted, fighting for her voice to be heard above the sound of newly sparked thunder which began to boom in the black covered sky. The smell of ozone was strong in the air now.

Valdera didn't answer. Her white cloak writhed violently against her body in response to the surges of power she was generating. Windowpanes in the buildings around them began to shatter and white bolts of lightning forked across the horizon above them, no longer a black bolt to be seen anywhere. Toward the center of the city where masses of people had gathered, the noise of revelry faded away as they seemed to notice the great disturbance to the west.

Impossibly, the blue-black dome directly above them, wavered, then groaned as if under tremendous pressure. The sound was deafening and Misty thought her eardrums would burst. And then a small crack appeared,  
grew then shattered creating a gaping opening along the city's domed defence. Even more shocking was the sudden, blinding sunlight streaming through the hole, burning through the dark heavens that had shadowed the world, sunlight that had not been seen since the whole nightmare of the prophecy had begun. The sun was an angry unnatural white, burning blistering hot, washing over them and the building they were standing upon in waves. Steam instantly hissed from the cement of the roof.

"I've missed the sun," Valdera whispered as if to herself, Misty hearing it despite the howl of the wind and the cracking of thunder as she shaded her eyes with the back of her gloved hand.

Dread made Misty's throat turn dry. She had seen the like of this once before. Ash at South lavender before he had reduced the base and most of the surrounding countryside to dust. Vally ... please God, no...

Valdera's arms were still raised, though her palms were opened. She clenched them now. The earth trembled. "WHITE LIGHTNING ULTIMATE!"

Misty didn't know what made her do it, but she exploded forward, catching Valdera's raised fists in her own. For one long moment it seemed as if Misty was facing a mirror, holding hands with her reflection.

Conflicting thoughts spidered along her consciousness.

Keep her angry have to kill her I have to I'll never be free need to be my own person break the prophecy I hate myself will kill myself I need to live to be free ... what's this she's holding my hands shouldn't hold hands reminds me of Ash, Ashura, Ash...

She blinked and the world shifted.

And suddenly it was Ash in front of her, holding her hands tightly within each of his own. But it was not the Ash of now, it was a younger Ash, his black hair somewhat shorter so that it didn't fall into his eyes so much,  
his face with several cuts bleeding on it, and his coat looked so shredded it was as if it would fall from his shoulders at any moment.

All around, buildings were crumbling and falling, most of them burning.  
It was Celadon City. But it had not been totally destroyed yet. It was in the process of being destroyed.

Brought about by the three men dressed in earthen-brown long hooded cloaks that stood before them.

"I know you don't like me much, no I know you hate me, but you have to listen to me!"

Her stomach tightened with conflicting feelings. Finally her mouth opened of its own accord. "Why did you come here, Ashura? This is my fight and I will finish it!" Her hands struggled within his grip but he would not let go. "Let go!" Misty abruptly felt searing pain as electricity flared within her palms. "Or I'll kill you just like I'd kill any other Rocket Army scum!"

Ash sucked in his breath as the electricity flowed into his hands and it was enough to distract him so that she could lift him up and throw him to the side violently.

She turned to face her attackers again. "Now where were we?"

The cloaked man in the middle shook his head. "You should have listened to him, girl." His voice was deep and had the quality that seemed to exude danger. "You may have extraordinary natural talent for the elements, but you're still just a novice." His eyes glowed an evil brown.  
"I will do this myself you little bitch and maybe have fun with you later."

His cloaked form flared to match his eyes and suddenly there was a pain within her head such as she had never felt before. She had thought she was above pain with her mastering a side of her element that was so contrary to her being that it caused her agony whenever she wielded it,  
but apparently she had thought wrong. She fell to her hands and knees and vomited on the floor.

"Game over, little electric mistress," the cloaked man said. He seemed to look critically at her. "I'd thought to have you later, but it looks like you really aren't my type. Never mind, you can just lay there and die"  
His hands glowed with elemental power. "Subterranean Spike!"

The ground rumbled beneath her and she closed her eyes. She had been stupid. So weak. She had thought that with her gift emerging she could defeat anyone. The days of her backing down to anyone and everyone were over once and for all. Instead, it seemed these ... Pokemon Masters dressed in brown were more powerful than she could have imagined. She should have paid more attention to the rumours. And Ashura would watch her die. Ashura ... Ash.

And suddenly she was pushed away forcefully as a razor-sharp rock thrust itself out of the ground narrowly missing her. A wet splatter sprinkled on her cheek as she rolled away.

"NO." The voice was from behind her and sounded drained of emotion. "All I have left is my friends and I won't let you take them too."

She turned to look weakly back at what had saved her. It was Ash kneeling near the earthen spike, with a long cut on his arm where it had slashed him. He had pushed her out of the way only to become hurt in the process.

"Boy, you shouldn't have interfered," the brown-cloaked Pokemon Master growled. Two malevolent eyes within the dark hood flared red.

What was he doing? she thought. He could only fight hand to hand, he had no elemental ability of his own! These Pokemon Masters would kill him! He had just committed suicide!

...

For her...

...

Conflicting thoughts spidered along her consciousness.

And yet other emotions matched perfectly.

...

Their hands abruptly broke apart and they both fell on their backs, Misty feeling immensely tired as if she had no more energy within her. From the sound of Valdera's laboured breathing beside her, she probably felt the same... she did feel the same.

The sun high above them dimmed as black stormy clouds resumed their place covering it. And soon, those too were out of view as the gaping hole that Valdera had created in the shadow dome quickly closed itself as if it were a wound that had just been healed. The dark fog of the skys also began to renew itself and the wind had died down to its usual eerie wailing.

Misty closed her eyes. She knew now. It had literally taken Valdera to beat it into her, hell, she even beat it into herself.

But now she knew.

She pushed herself into a sitting position and spat out some blood to the side. Valdera did the same.

Misty struggled to her feet and turned away, ready to go. "I'll be leaving now."

Hearing that, Valdera laughed tonelessly. "You don't care about what I will do to Ashura anymore?"

Misty shook her head. "You can't kill Ash." She shook her head ironically. "Even if it was to save the world."

Valdera's blue eyes that were her own abruptly blazed with light, then just as suddenly died down. Instead her eyes closed in defeat.

"I know you could never kill him," Misty continued, "because I could never kill him. Because you are me ... and I am you."

End of Part 12

To Be Continued in the final Conclusion ...

POKEDEX

?  
Type 1 - Shadow Type 2 - Water

Attack : Shadow Mist Type : Shadow / Water A mist of overwhelming darkness that can corrupt the flesh, and even freeze solid.

Notes:

This part was originally going to be the last, and I released first a quarter then this when it was taking too long. Then the fic just exploded in size and Part 13 had to be born by splitting it or it would have exceeded 500 Kbs. I don't think I've seen a single part of a fanfiction that size anywhere on the net! I probably win some sort of record :D

Ace Sanchez Emails : : WWW : www.users..au/acey 


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